
I* 




rinss " hi- 6) 
Book CSL 



SMlTHSONL\X DKI'OSn. 



\9 



A 



THE WILL 



ITS STRICTURE AND MODE OF ACTION, 



A Thesis presented to the Faculty of Cornell University for 

the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, 

May, 1892. 



BY 



JAMES EDWIN CREIGHTON, A.B. 



THE WILL 4-^^ 



ITS STRUCTURE AND MODE OF ACTION. 



BY 



JAMES EDWIN CREIGHTON, A.B. 



printed by 
Andrus & Church, 

ITHACA, 1898. 






Cb 



42974 1 



PREFACE. 

This essay was written during the summer of 1891, while 
I was a student in the University of Berlin, and presented 
to the Faculty of Cornell University as a thesis for the doc- 
torate in the spring of 1892. At that time I hoped to be 
able to return to the subject and make what I had done the 
basis for a more extensive investigation. The press of other 
engagements and duties has, however, prevented me from 
carrying out this plan, and the essay is now published in the 
form in which it was first written. I have added one or two 
foot-notes while reading the proofs, but made no other altera- 
tions, though if I were writing today I should doubtless lay 
different emphasis upcn certain points. 

My interest in the subject of the Will was due mainly to 
the psychological writings of Wundt, James, and Miinster- 
berg, and my treatment owes much to each of these writers. 
My other obligations I have tried to acknowledge in full 
throughout the essay itself. 

J. E. C. 



TABIvE OF CONTENTS. 



Chapter I. The Concept of W11.1., 



PAGE 

7 

Chapter II. The Development of Wii.Iv, . 18 

Chapter III. An Analysis of WilIvIng, . . 28 

Chapter IV. The Relation of Mind and Body, 46 
Chapter V. The Freedom of the Will, . 63 




CHAPTER I. 

THE CONCEPT OF WILL. 

It is of the utmost importance to attempt, first of all, to 
define the conceptions which are to form the subject of our 
study. What do the terms ' Will ' and ' Willing ' signify ? 
The extension of these terms have varied widely, as is well 
known, with different authors. With many writers ' Will ' is 
only used to denote a conscious choice between alternative 
directions of activity, and is predicated only of such individ- 
uals as are capable of representing to themselves such possi- 
bilities.^ Other philosophers widen the conception by omit- 
ting from it the element of consciousness, and that of repre- 
sentation of alternatives, and thus extend the notion of will, so 
as to make it synonymous with force or energy in general. In 
this broader sense of the word. Will is predicable not only of 
persons, but also of all phenomena of the Universe, and of the 
Universe itself as a whole.^ Between these extreme limits, 
we find various definitions and uses of the term, as one or 
other of the elements constituting the concept has been em- 
phasized or removed.^ 

As for the last mentioned theory, that of Schopenhauer 
and his school, we can only protest against such a confusion 
of ideas under one term. We know ' Will ' only through 
our own immediate experience, and as an element of our con- 
scious life ; and, as thus known, consciousness, not less than 
force, is always an element of the empirically given fact. To 
quote from Sigwart : "From this point of view an uncon- 
scious Will is a contradictio in adjecto. It may be believed 



^ Martineau, A Study of Religion, I. p, 198 ; II. p. 188. Sigwart, Kleine 
Schriften, Vol. II, p. 118 ff. 
' Schopenhauer, Die Welt als Wille. Werke, II, pp. 113 ff. 
' For various uses, see Martineau, Study of Religion, II., p. 188. 



8 The Will. 

that unconscious activities take place, and have the same re- 
sults as those which we call will ; we may perhaps even be 
justified in calling these activities Will in a wider sense, but 
only because we have first learned to know a conscious Will ; 
and it will always be safer to choose for the broader concept 
another term. " ^ 

On the other hand, it seems to me that the notion of will 
as a separate Faculty has tended to unduly limit the notion. 
The old Psychology regarded the activities of the self as 
manifested through a number of ' Faculties ' such as Think- 
ing, Perceiving, Willing, etc. It was too often forgotten that 
these faculties were not each sui generis^ and that they indi- 
cated nothing in themselves apart from the nature of the con- 
scious processes. Apart from the definite content of con- 
sciousness, the universal form of activity is only an abstraction 
which leads us astray and defies treatment. As a result of the 
same separation, too, a large part of our mental life was con- 
ceived as going on without any relation to the Will. It was sup- 
posed that ordinarily the Associative process, with its own pe- 
culiar laws, sufficed to explain mental occurrences. But at cer- 
tain points, more or less frequent in the life of the individual, 
the Will as a kind of miraculous function, as a power of an al- 
gether new and unique nature, was supposed to intervene and 
to prove its superiority to the ordinary Associative law^s, by 
subordinating them to its commands, or reversing their di- 
rection. 

Modern psychologists, on the other hand, refuse to make 
this sharp and absolute distinction between Will and the other 
processes of the mental life. They lay emphasis upon the 
fact that in " all sensation, all Association and Comparison a 
constant cooperation of the Will also takes place. " ^ " Asso- 
ciation, " says Wundt, '* is only the reflex of that central 
unity of our consciousness which we immediately perceive in 



^ Kleine Schriften, II., p. ii6. 

' Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, Sec. 132. 



The Concept of Will. 9 

the inner and outer activity of the Will. " ^ Thinking, Per- 
ceiving, etc., are different names which signify the employ- 
ment of this activity in different spheres, and npon different 
kinds of subject matter. 

We may name all psychical activity, all influence which 
the self exerts upon the course of events. Will i7i the broader 
sense of the term. In so far as the self asserts itself against 
inner or outer events, and modifies, or strives to modify them, 
it may be said to will. But, it may be asked, why should 
the other psychical activities be subsumed under willing ? 
The answer to this question is to be found in the fact which 
will be emphasized throughout this essay, that the will pro- 
cess has really its root in the selective activity of attention. 
And it is true that this activity finds employment in the con- 
struction of our perceptive world, and in the formation of our 
concepts and judgments regarding it, no less than in effecting 
changes in the stream of thought, or in bodies lying external 
to us. 

Our perceptive world, the world with which we come into 
immediate contact in every day experience, is the result of 
choosing, out of the infinite variety of things by which we 
are surrounded, some objects which are to us particularly in- 
teresting. As no two men's interests are exactly identical, 
the worlds in which they live can not be absolutely identical. 
The painter's world is more rich in beautiful forms and 
colors than that of the ordinary man ; the musician detects 
in the moaning of the wind harmonies that are lost on an ear 
less sensitive. The scientist's perceptive world is made up 
of a variety of details which simply do not exist for the 
ordinary man. 

The influence of the attention in constituting and de- 
termining our world for us is plainly seen as we pass from 



1 Grimdzuge d. Physiol. Psychologic, ist Aufl. p. 726 ; Cf. also Hoffding 
Outlines of Psychology {'Bng. trans.) pp. 314: " It is not enough to say- 
that will precedes cognition and feeling, for these latter, looked at one from 
one side, are themselves manifestations of will in the Mdder sense." 



V 



lo , The Will. 

childhood to manhood. I was very much interested lately in 
walking with a little boy to find that the things he saw were 
almost entirely different from those which made an impres- 
sion upon me. Talking to him afterwards of what he had 
seen, I found that the objects of his experience, what he had 
actually seen and remembered, were things which are prac- 
tically absent for the ordinary adult. 

This fact of the selective function of the will in perception 
is well illustrated by Professor James : " Let four men make a 
tour in Europe. One will bring home only picturesque im- 
pressions of costumes and colors, parks and views and works 
of architecture, picture and statues. To another all this will 
be non-existent ; distances and prices, populations and drain- 
age statistics will take their place. A third will give a rich 
account of the theatres, restaurants, and public halls and 
naught beside ; whilst the fourth will perhaps have been so 
wrapped in his own subjective broodings as to tell little more 
than a few names of places through which he passed. Each 
has selected out of the same mass of presented objects those 
which suited his private interests, and has made his experi- 
ence thereby." ^ 

Leaving now this field of perception, and coming to what 
is usually regarded as the higher mental activities, we find 
that they, too, manifest to a striking degree the selective ac- 
tivity of the self. Concepts are formed from percepts by 
abstraction, and attention. That is, the concept-process con- 
sists in picking out from a variety of percepts, those which 
seem to us, in accordance with our interests or practical needs, 
to be the most essential attributes of the things presented to 
us. The elements thus selected are bound together by means 
of a common name. While thus essentially individual in 
their nature, the common or universal aspect of concepts is 
intelligible from the fact that human beings, as members of 
the same world, have to a large degree the same practical 



Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, p. 286. 



The Concept of Will. ii 

needs. Reasoning, again, may be described as a selection of 
one out of many conceptions each of which stands in subordin- 
ation to a higher, and of that particular one which will serve 
as a connecting link between that higher and some lower 
concept or individual with which our practical interests lead 
us to connect it. Thus in the syllogism, 

M is P, 

Sis M, 

Sis P, 
what we done is to select from the numerous notions which 
are comprehended in P, the appropriate one Mhy means of 
which S can be brought into relation with P} But not only 
this formal process of reasoning, but the very content of one's 
thoughts is the result of selection. As the accompaniment 
of physiological currents playing through the brain, there are 
constantly offered to consciousness ideas of which the greater 
number vanish immediately and without being reflected upon. 
I choose certain of these ideas, in accordance with my theoreti- 
cal interests or practical needs, and ponder over them and 
their relation to other ideas. I deliberately make them the 
subject of my thought, direct my attention to them, and, at 
the same time, ignore the great rank and file of the actual 
mental processes, which, consequently, take no place in my 
thought series. Out of the infinitude of ideas in the stream 
of consciousness, I choose those about which I wish to think, 
I emphasize some and neglect others, and thus literally make 
my experience what I will it shall be. 

It is, perhaps, so obvious as to scarcely require mention 
that our external actions are only the outcome of a series of 
selections. As a rule, when I perform any bodily act, contract 
this or that group of muscles, some other movement is always 
physically possible ; and in so far the act performed may be re- 
garded as chosen. But to say that an act is willed, expresses 
something more than that an event has taken place which 



^ Cf. James, Prijtciples of Psychology, Vol. II, pp. 331 ff. 



^ 



12 Tke Will. 

may be regarded as one of several possibilities. Because the 
results are the same as if willed, because events have oc- 
curred which from our point of view can be regarded as 
selections, we have no right to regard them as manifestations 
of Will, so long as we understand the term in its ordinary- 
signification. What I mean when I say ' I will' is not only 
that one out of a number of possibilities w^ill result, but that 
the selection is the outcome of a conscious activity which I 
identify with myself. There can be no meaning in the term 
' Will ' unless we understand by it, the act of a conscious 
being.^ 

But we have still more difficult questions before us. So 
far, we are on ground which today is scarcely disputed. 
Selection and consciousness are universally admitted to be 
involved in the ordinary concept of willing. As soon, how- 
ever, as we inquire into the degree of consciousness which 
must attend an act of Will, we find the greatest differences 
f opinion. Can there be an act of will without a repre- 
itation of the end for the sake of which the act is per- 
med ; and does such an act always involve the clear 
consciousness of the several possibilities or alternatives open 
at the time ? Many writers, with the ethical signification of 
acts of will in view, have answered both these questions in 
the affirmative. Thus Sigwart says the proposition, ' no 
will without end,' is analytic, just as ' no effect without a 
cause ' is analytic.^ It must certainly be admitted that all 
action is for the sake of something ; but this is not the same 
thing as to say that this 'something' for the sake of which we 
act, is clearly present to our ordinary consciousness. It ap- 
pears to me that it is necessary to distinguish sharply be- 
tween the ordinary unreflective consciousness which accom- 



^ It might perhaps be said that not only consciousness, but also a rational 
consciousness is pre-supposed in a real act of will. As Professor Watson 
has lately remarked : " Onl}'^ a rational being can have a \N-ill. ' ' 

''■Kleine Schriften, II., Der Begriff des Wolletis. 



The Concept of Will. 13 

panics a large part of our daily life, and the more delibera- 
tive critical consciousness which is evoked when we 
psychologize, or when some crisis arises which demands 
closer consideration. In every day life, a conscious end to 
which we refer each act is as much a fiction as the theory of 
separate isolated sensations which are consciously compared 
and related. But analysis proves that the end is always 
present in potcntia^ in the sense that it has been a real 
factor in the choice. Subsequent reflection, too, may bring 
to light the part which it has played. 

We may perhaps make the matter clearer in another way. 
On an analysis of my consciousness, I find over and above 
the transient psychical states, certain more permanent ele- 
ments. In addition to the passing sensations of sight, sound, 
etc., there are present the somewhat fixed muscular sensa- 
tions ; besides the more ephemeral interests and ideals which 
from time to time becomes satisfied and realized, there are 
more abiding ends and interests which are more intimately 
connected with myself. Indeed, it is these which I group 
together as myself. I am not, however, conscious of them 
in detail during my ordinary life ; but just because they are 
comparatively permanent they are neglected. Their influ- 
ence, however, can at once be percieved as soon as an 
analysis is made by reflecting on previous actions. 

The other question, viz., whether in a case of willing there 
must be present the representation of at least two possible 
lines of action, is closely allied to this. As a general rule, in 
performing the routine of every-day life, we scarcely consider 
or reflect at all ; we act as we have been accustomed to act 
in like circumstances. In familiar circumstances, we act in 
accordance with certain practical maxims or receipts, and the 
one line of action is adopted without the others coming into 
clear consciousness at all. But inasmuch as the act performed 
was chosen or adopted, we cannot hesitate to say that it was 
willed. The most of cases that come up in ordinary life are 
at once adopted or rejected, because they are immediately 



14 The Will 

perceived to be consistent or inconsistent with the purpose of 
the life, or of the day. It is only more rarely that it is not 
evident which one of several actions will be best adapted to 
our purpose, and that we find ourselves confronted by a prob- 
lem which cannot be settled in the off-hand way described 
above. When, however, in consequence of a new combina- 
tion of circumstances, such a crisis arises, the choice cannot 
be made without a clear representation of the various com- 
peting possibilities, nor without more or less prolonged de- 
liberation upon the results of the various courses of action. 

It may, perhaps, be advantageous to denominate cases of 
willing Will in the narrower sense ^ or explicit acts of will, 
where the choice has been made after a clear conscious- 
ness of different possible acts, and of their relation to an 
end. We may then distinguish from this fully con- 
scious stage. Will in the broader sense ^ or implicit acts 
of will, where the consciousness of the other possibilities is 
not so clearly present, but where the act follows the represen- 
tation of some one line of action as a matter of course. It 
must be kept in mind, however, that no hard and fast line 
can be drawn between explicit and implicit acts of will, nor 
between acts which are implicitly willed, and those which 
are merely manifestations of unconscious or subconscious 
tendencies and instincts. 

We shall endeavor to show in Chapter II, that one species 
of act passes into another by infinite gradations. Just as on 
the spectrum we cannot say that at any fixed point red ends, 
and yellow begins, so, I think, we are unable to fix any divid- 
ing line in the gradual development of W^ill, as it passes from 
unconscious and instinctive manifestations to the clear light 
of deliberative choice. The distinction just made, however, 
although not absolute, will prove useful in avoiding con- 
fusions in our subsequent discussions. 

When we speak of Will, we denote a mental occurrence 
which has for its object either the production of something 
which does not yet exist, or the holding fast of something 



The Concept of Will 15 

which we already possess, and which is in danger of being 
displaced by something else. In both cases, there is a repre- 
sentation of what is willed ; and if the act of will has been 
explicit, there is also a representation of other possibilities. 
In the first case, when the will is directed towards realizing 
something that does not yet exist, the act follows oftentimes 
without the competition of other representations. So soon as 
the act is thought of, it is at once consented to, and adopted. 
In the other case, where the will is exerted to maintain the 
present condition of affairs, it is more likely to be explicit. 
Very often we simply enjoy the present without willing its 
continuance. It is only when something else comes into 
competition with the employment or enjoyment of the pres- 
ent that the will is called into exercise at all. If I am seated 
at my desk reading or writing, I do not require to constantly 
exercise my will to remain there. It is only when some 
other alternative presents itself, e. g.^ that of taking a walk, 
or of making a visit, that an act of will is necessary to con- 
tinue my work. If, however, these competing attractions 
present themselves and I still decide to remain where I am, 
it is because this has been willed in opposition to the other 
courses which have presented themselves to me. 

Further, Will must be directed to something which I be- 
lieve myself capable of realizing. It must have reference to 
an act which I can perform, or believe that I can perform. 
It is not possible that I should will that a rainy day should 
become fine ; because I can not represent this to myself as 
lying within my power. The means for the realization of 
any end which I will must be such as seem to be subject to 
my control. To will the end implies the willing of the 
means ; and, further, a belief that these means are such as lie 
within our reach. It is true that subsequent deliberation 
may teach us that we were mistaken, that the end can only 
be obtained through the employment of means which we are 
unable or unwilling to adopt, but when this becomes obvious, 
we do not any longer will that the end shall be realized. 



1 6 The Will 

What has just been said enables us to distinguish between 
' Desire ' and ' Will '. The former implies only a mere 
looking towards the end, without any consideration of means. 
The latter is practical, it sets the machinery agoing to ac- 
complish the end, and begins with the member of the series 
which lies nearest to hand. A wish, then, may be di- 
rected to what lies wholly beyond one's power to re- 
alize, and it may be wholly unpractical ; i. e.^ take no 
account whatever of the means. Thus, for example, one may 
desire wings, or the power to be in two places at the 
same time. For the same reason, it is quite possible to desire 
certain ends while the sole means for their realization is not 
at all desired. For example, I may desire to become learned 
or rich, and still may not desire to burn the midnight oil, or 
to practice prudence and economy, as these ends demand. 

One word further regarding the relation of Desire and 
Will. We have seen that mere Desire is inoperative and in- 
effectual in attaining its object. Desire, however, passes 
into Will when the unpractical ' would that it were ' is re- 
inforced by the rational ' let it be,' or it ' must not be ' of 
the self, which speaks with a consciousness of what the act 
really involves. Desire, we may say, is the expression of 
the nature of a sensitive being, while Will, in the sense in 
which we propose to use the term, belongs only to a rational 
being who has already attained some capacity for ' looking 
before and after," and who is able to perceive the essential 
unity of end and means. 

In conclusion, we may emphasize the fact that will is a 
mental and not a physical phenomenon. It is not necessar}^, 
that is, that an act of will shall be manifested in a series of 
muscular movements. W^e may will without moving a 
muscle. All the phenomena of will may be present in con- 
sciousness though there is no perceptible result so far as the 
external world is concerned. As Professor James some- 
where sa^^s, ' willing is a relation between the mind and its 
ideas, not between the mind and the external world.' The 



The Concept of Will. 17 

phenomena which are to form the subject of this study, then, 
are psychological processes, and it is mainly with an analysis 
and description of these phenomena that we shall be con- 
cerned throughout the two following chapters. When this 
task has been completed, we shall, however, proceed to 
discuss the relation of mind and body, and shall finally con- 
sider in what sense it is possible to speak of the freedom 
of the will. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF WILL. 

There is no doubt that it will be more easily possible to 
analyze an overt and clearly conscious act of will, than to de- 
termine the nature of process which are largely instinctive, 
and which go on for the most part below the threshold of con- 
sciousness. In attempting to analyze the phenomena present 
in consciousness during an act of volition, we shall accordingly 
select such an overt act as the subject of our analysis. Be- 
fore we begin this undertaking, however, it seems advan- 
tageous to see what light is thrown upon the nature of the 
explicit will processes by attempting to trace briefly their 
genesis from earlier and more simple forms. 

In the first place, w^e remark that the will is an elementary 
and original process of our conscious life. No matter how 
far back we may push our investigations, we shall always 
find the will present as a reaction of the self upon the con- 
scious content. All attempts to derive wall from something 
which is generically from it, must necessaril}^ prove fruitless. 
This assertion scarcely needs proof at the present time, and 
we may perhaps content ourselves by referring to the futility 
of Herbart's attempt — which is perhaps now almost uni- 
versally acknowledged — to derive will from the relation be- 
tween representations. While emphasizing the uniqueness 
of the will process, however, modern psychology also points out 
the organic unity and interrelation of the whole mental life. 
While the old faculty theory separated sharply between knowl- 
edge and volition, modern psychologists maintain that in all 
sensation, all association and comparison, will is also present 
as a factor. The voluntary control of thoughts is regarded as 
a process involving will not less than what we usually call vol- 
untary acts, and which produce an effect in the external world. 
In short, we may say with Hoffding, " the problem of will is 



The Development of Will. 19 

concerned with the right conception and understanding of 
attention. " ^ To understand the nature of will, that is, we 
must begin with will itself. In other words, our develop- 
ment must be autogenetic^ not heterogenetic.'^ We must give 
up all attempts to derive will from something different from 
itself, and confine ourselves to an investigation of how com- 
plex deliberative acts are evolved from more simple purpose- 
less acts. There are, says Wundt,^ two questions to be an- 
swered : (i) " What are the relations of the primitive inner 
activity of will to the other phenomena of consciousness ? (2) 
How does the outer activity of will arise from the inner?" 
We shall so far as possible treat these questions separately, 
although it will be found, as we proceed, that inner and outer 
manifestations of will act and react upon each other. 

We have already asserted, that in every stage of conscious 
development, there is always some activity manifested by the 
individual, which, however, becomes explicit onl}- in volition. 
This is the activity of apperception ; and without this our ex- 
perience would be a mere series of separate feelings, entirely 
wanting in any unity. Biit since it is in virtue of the synthetic 
and dynamic character of consciousness that our experience 
forms a whole, we may regard apperception as an original ele- 
ment. iVs we find this activity in lower forms of conscious- 
ness, however, it is a blind, irrational response to some ob- 
ject which is immediately pleasant or unpleasant. When 
strong or absorbing sensations fill consciousness, this activity 
seems crowded out and to give no sign of its existence. At- 
tention in such cases seems to be ' a function of the object ' 
rather than of the subject. But a more or less rapid change 
of content is a condition both of conscious activity and of con- 
sciousness itself. When a change takes place, when a new 
sensation makes its appearance, the activity of the Will is man- 



1 Vierteljahrsch. f. wdssensch. Philos., Bd. XIV., Hft. 3, pp. 29. 

2 Cf. also Baldwin, Feeling and Will, p. 34-7. 

2 Wundt, Griuidzuge der Physiol. Psychologies 3*^'' Aufl. Bd. II, p. 465. 



20 The Will. 

ifested in the mode of its reception. The tvv'o ways in which 
this involuntary apperception manifests itself are by attraction 
and repulsion. If the new state is interesting^ i. e.^ if it in- 
troduces a pleasant change into the existing state of con- 
sciousness, the attention is directed towards it ; if, for any 
reason, it is unpleasant, the activity is employed in suppress- 
ing it so far as possible. This constitutes, as Hoffding re- 
marks " an elementary choice, and determines the manner in 
which things shall appear to us. As plants turn to the light, 
so our perceptive faculties turn to that which excites pleasure 
and interest, and away from that which excites pain. " ' 

The selection at this stage, however, is altogether blind and 
instinctive. It is a mere straining towards what is immedi- 
ately pleasant, and away from what is immediately painful. 
A higher stage can only be attained through the development 
of memory and intellect. This is reached when the ac- 
tion is guided by the idea of the result, as based on previ- 
ous experience, and represented to consciousness. There is 
thus a kind of preparation for the result. The function of the 
representation thus present to consciousness is to determine 
to a great extent what shall be perceived. We see and hear 
mainly what we look for and expect. This preparatory- 
action of attention, or of the will, is also shown in the ex- 
periments on reaction time. When attention is directed to 
the movements to be performed, the reaction time is much 
less than in the cases where it is directed toward the expected 
stimulus. At this period of development, we have got 
beyond the stage of blind instinctive action, and are at the 
stage of impulse. We have not as yet Will in the narrower 
sense of a choice between motives, but Will which follows a 
single representation. There can, under these circumstances, 
be no voluntary choice in the strict sense of the word ; for 
there is only a single motive present, and the action follows 
unhesitatingly in its direction. 



^Hoffding, Outlines of Psychology, p. 314. 



The Develop7nent of Will. 2i 

/ A real choice first arises when different impulses conflict 

with each other, and we are accordingly compelled to pause and 
settle the rival claims of possible competing lines of action. It 
is evident that we do not find such power of deliberation to 
any extent among the lower animals. In their case, there is 
no balancing of motives, no weighing of attractions against 
each other. In the same way, the child's acts are at first all 
impulsive in character. The object of the whole course of 
his practical education is to make him think ; i. e.^ to inhibit 
impulsive action by the idea of consequences ; or, at a later 
stage of development, by the desire to bring all the acts of 
the individual life into relation with something which he re- 
gards as an end in itself. Such a choice requires a degree of 
mental development, and a power of deliberation and com- 
parison, which is not found in young children nor in most 
animals. However important an advance is marked by a de- 
liberate choice between several competing motives, yet it is 
evident that such selections have developed gradually from 
impulse acts. In a given case, it is often difficult to say 
whether the act has been determined by a single motive, or 
whether other considerations were also present, but have 
been, in comparison with the victorious motive, so weak and 
ineffectual, that they obtained no hold upon consciousness. 
According to Lotze and some English ethical writers, Will 
implies a deliberate choice between two or more competing 
possibilities.' But this is not something radically different 
from manifestations of which we have been treating at an 
earlier stage, but is the highest and most complete develop- 
ment of Will. " The selection of passive, the attention of 
reactive actions, find their fruition in the fiat of volitional con- 
sciousness."^ We may describe these phenomena as consti- 
tuting a complex and intensified form of Will. It is com- 



^Microcosmos /., 286. Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, Vol. II., pp. 
35-37. 

^Baldwin, Feelings and Will, p. 347. 




22 The Will. 

plex, for there are several distinct stages or processes, the 
representation of several possible decisions, deliberation upon 
the consequences of each of these, and, finally, the act of Will 
proper, which last in itself seems more conscious than the 
activity of the instinctive or impulsive stage/ 

As before remarked, it is impossible to draw any sharp 
dividing line between uni-motived and plural-motived acts. 
The one passes by imperceptible stages into the other. 
-N^¥^¥4heles#^/t isy^a moment of the utmost importance for 
the development of the Will, when a conflict between differ- 
ent motives arises, and the original impulse is resisted. Now 
for the first time the action becomes voluntary. The volun- 
tary act, however, is not something which suddenly comes 
upon the scene and supersedes all other modes of action. 
But throughout life the great majority of our acts are per- 
formed from instinct or impulse, and a deliberate choice is 
more rare than is generally imagined. Further, in lower 
forms of conscious life, there are what we may perhaps call 
incipient choices. '' Even in instinct, a certain choice takes 
place in so far as several simultaneous perceptions awaken 
several different impulses, of which the stronger leads to 
action. Further, a sense perception can call up a representa- 
tion, even before the impulse has led to action, which has as 
a result, an impulse in direct opposition to the first. The 
action may at once be determined b}' the relative strength of 
the impulses without any lengthened deliberation of which 
corresponds to an end. Between this instinctive choice 
(which has more the nature of passive choice) and the fully 
self-conscious subordination of individual motives under a 
maxim or a law, there are infinitely numerous intermediate 
links. "^-V^The distinctive feature of voluntary or deliberative 
(' acts of will, is the abstraction from the immediate soliciting 
'1 power of different impulses, and their evaluation according to 



^Kulpe, Die Lehre vom JVilleu, p. 72. 
^Schneider, Der menschliche Wille, p. 2S0. 




The Development of Will. 23 

l^the idea of some permanent end. We can now perceive 
more clearly why voluntary acts should be called an inten- 
sive form of Will. Although the activity of apperception 
can be perceived even in instinctive, and still more clearly in 
impulsive acts, yet it manifests itself most unmistakably in 
voluntary acts. In turning the attention now to this, now to 
that possibility, in deliberating and reflecting over the con- 
sequences, and evaluating the different impulses in relation 
to an end, the Will manifests itself as the absolute centre of 
personality. It is this intensified form of Will which compels 
recognition, and which can not be explained as merely the per- 
v^ sistence in consciousness of the strongest impression. For 
'^^ my own part, it seems indisputable that attention is more 
than 'predominance of an idea in consciousness.' 
' y^It is the immediate consciousness of our own activity, as 
/ thus emphasized and intensified in the act of choice, which 
/ constitutes our feeling of Freedom, upon which the sense of 
\^ responsibility is often supposed to rest. As an empirically 
given fact, this experience gives no testimony regarding the 
ultimate question of freedom ; but only asserts that we act 
without compulsion, that we are forced or pushed by nothing 
outside ourselves, that the self is the centre from which it has 
originated. ^ Without that feeling, the moral judgments 
which we pass upon our own acts would be unmeaning. 
With that feeling, and because of it, we recognize the action 
to be our own and accordingly hold ourselves responsible. ^ 
This is the' basis of our practical freedom, while the more 
ultimate and metaphysical question can be answered either 
way without prejudice to our notions of duty or responsi- 
bility.^ 

We have now to consider the development of outer acts of 



1 Cf. Wundt, Ethik, ist ed., p. 398. 

'^HofFding, Die Gesetzmdssigkeit der psychische?i Activitat, V. f, w. Phil. 
XV., pp. 373 ff. 

'Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, p. 70 ff. 



24 The Will 

Will, as manifested most immediately in changes in the mus- 
cles of our own body. This development, of course, goes 
along with, and is supplementary to, the growth of Will as 
phenomena of consciousness. We have treated of the de- 
velopment of the latter separately so far merely for the sake of 
clearness. 

All bodily movements may be divided into two classes, the 
purely physiological, and the psychological. The physiologi- 
cal movements go on mechanically, and are not attended by 
consciousness, or, at most, it is only the result of the move- 
ments which enters into consciousness. In psychological 
movements, on the contrary, a more or less distinct representa- 
tion of the movement, or of its consequence, precedes its actual 
occurrence. The former class of movements may be either 
automatic or reflex. Automatic or spontaneous movements 
originate within the organism itself, from some change in the 
condition of the blood, or through some other change in the 
organism. A reflex, on the other hand, takes place when the 
nerve current which has been carried to the sensory centre 
passes out by the motor path without any state of conscious- 
ness having preceded. Automatic movements are generally 
random and purposeless, and continue through life, blind, 
spontaneous discharges of physiological energy. Reflex 
movements" differ from these in being usually purposive 
when the stimulus is of medium intensity. 

One theory of the development of outer acts of w^ill holds 
that ail acts were at first either automatic or reflex ; and that 
from these, voluntary movements wxre developed. Bain and 
Preyer suppose that at first all movements were purely physi- 
ological, consciousness in the meantime being a mere on- 
looker and observing the results. In the course of time, 
however, it learns to direct these movements for its own 
ends — to inhibit those which have painful results, and to pro- 
duce those which are pleasant. At first the influence of con- 
sciousness is small ; but it gradually gains power over the 
physiological movements, and subordinates them to its con- 



The Development of Will. 25 

trol. If now we separate, as this theory does, consciousness 
from the original movements, it is difficult to understand 
how they are again to be combined. Just how the Will should 
at a certain point take control of movements which previous- 
ly went on independently of it, we are not told. It is quite in- 
explainable on this theory, too, how the Will should discover 
that certain movements are subject to its fiat, and change 
from a mere onlooker to an actual agent. Moreover, as 
Wundt says : " What an absurd conclusion to suppose that 
animals and men have come to the world as purely theoretic 
beings. After they have experienced many perceptions, and 
deliberated much, do they suddenly arrive at the idea. How 
would it be if we should ourselves execute these movements ? 
Said and done ; and for the future a new and useful power is 
gained. The only part of this account which has any rela- 
tion to the facts is the existence of reflex movements. But 
we neither know that reflexes must always precede voluntary 
movements, nor that the will ever takes the former into its 
service. . . We can prove that in many case voluntary 
movements become mechanical ; for the opposite view, on the 
contrary, there is scarcely a single trustworthy observation."^ 
It seems to me that we must refuse to separate outer and 
inner acts of will as this theory does. There is no doubt that in 
animals and young children we do find automatic and spon- 
taneous acts ; but there is no evidence that these ever become 
voluntary. What seem to us like physiological reflexes are, 
however, oftentimes psychological reflexes ; that is, at least a 
large part of the movements even of young children are mani- 
festations of W^ill. In lower forms of conscious life, every inner 
act of will manifests itself by means of a movement through 
which the sense organs are involuntary adjusted to the char- 
acter of the stimulus. i\lthough we acknowledge the presence 
of mechanical movements, we shall still have to say that many 



1 Wundt, Essays, pp. 292-93 ; Cf., also Martineau, A Study of Religion, 
Vol. II, pp. 202-203. 



26 The Will. 

phenomena which appear to be purely physiological are in 
fact psychological. The outer movement is only the other 
side, or the immediate result, of the apperception of the idea of 
the movement. " Outer acts of Will are only a product of 
Apperception which has arisen under complex conditions.^ 
As we shall see more clearly in a later chapter, the apperceiving 
process of the idea is the inner act of Will upon which the 
outer manifestation at once follows. We are indeed able in 
adult life to form the representation of a movement without 
it actually taking place ; but this is because we inhibit the 
movement by thinking at the same time of its not taking 
place. There is good reason to suppose that Apperception 
and outer acts were originally inseparable, and that their 
separation rests upon a later development of consciousness.^ 
This kind of action, which has been named ideo-v:\o\.ox^ is the 
type of all movement, and depends upon the law that every 
idea of the mind tends to realize itself in movement unless 
held in check by the idea of other movements. 

There seems, then, strong reasons for refusing to separate 
inner acts of will and outer movements. Wundt argues 
that we cannot point to a single case where reflex acts have 
become voluntary, while experience constantly shows us that 
the opposite is the case. If the will were able to assert its 
mastery over a sure working reflex mechanism, all the more 
complicated movements would be acquired at a single stroke. 
As a matter of fact, however, we learn such movements as 
walking, dancing, piano-playing, by long practice. It is only 
after they have been performed voluntarily for a longer or 
shorter time that they are handed over to a mechanism.' 
The order of development of outer acts of will, then, is from 
psychological reflexes or impulsive acts to voluntary, and 



MVundt, Grundzuge des physio! . Psychologic . Bd. II. p. 470. 
^ Wundt, Grundzfige des physiol. Psychologies Bd. II, p. 471. Compare 
also James, Psycholog}-. Vol. II, pp. 526-27. 
'Wundt, Essays, p. 294. 



The Development of Will. 27 

again from voluntary movements to mechanical or physio- 
logical reflexes. The impulsive or instinctive acts are first 
rationalized ; i. e.^ brought into harmony with some universal 
end, as preservation of self, or species. Indeed, many of 
these impulses are themselves rational from the beginning. 
It is not the task of reason to erradicate these natural im- 
pulses but to direct and control them. When habits have 
become formed, consciousness, having done its work, ceases 
to attend these processes, and they go on themselves in a 
purely mechanical way. We sometimes are able in later 
life to catch a glimpse of these old untamed impulses when 
a temptation seizes us at times to do some utterly senseless 
act ; and sometimes, too, it takes all our will power to inhibit 
and control such impulses. 

Of course, this account does not necessarily imply that all 
actions go through this transformation. Many movements 
remain throughout life at the impulsive stage. They may 
even continue to be subjects for deliberation, or at least con- 
tinue to be attended by some degree of consciousness. Such, 
it seems to me, are many of our most common impulses, as 
for example, that for food, or for revenge. Again, many of 
the acts which were once performed voluntarily may not yet 
have entirely passed over to the mechanical stage, but may 
still be attended by more or less distinct consciousness. The 
presence of actions of this kind seem, however, rather to con- 
firm our theory than to be opposed to it. For such move- 
ments represent intermediate stages of the process, they are 
acts which are on the way, one may say, to become reflex. 



CHAPTER HI. 

AN ANALYSIS OF WILLING. 

Will does not exist as an isolated element of our conscious- 
ness which is given to us directly through introspection, but 
it is rather a concept which is formed through analysis of the 
highly complex facts which are given to inner perception/ 
There are, no doubt, certain phenomena of consciousness which 
are usually known as volitio7is^ because in them will or activ- 
ity of consciousness seems to be the most distinctive feature. 
Yet neither volitions, nor cognitions, nor feelings, form by 
themselves actually existing states of mind. As Mr. Ward 
says : " Instead of three coordinate species, cognition, emotion, 
conation, we have three distinct and irreducible facts, atten- 
tion, feeling, and object or presentation constituting one con- 
crete state of mind or psychosis, " - 

Our problem will then be to analyze and describe the em- 
pirically given content of that psychical phenomenon which 
we name volition. Although much attention has been be- 
stowed upon this subject, and much keen introspection has 
been employed, yet psychologists by no means agree in their 
descriptions of the facts. However, upon one point all are 
agreed. When a voluntary act of the clearly conscious sort 
is performed, there is always present to consciousness a rep- 
resentation or prefiguring of the result. If a movement is 
to be willed, there is first a representation in consciousnesss of 
how the movement feels or looks. It is of course necessary, 
in order that these conditions may be fulfilled, that this move- 
ment should have been previously performed. And so vol- 



^ Cf. Wundt, " Zur Lehre von den Gemiithsbeweguiigen, ' ' Phil. Studien, 
VL, p. 382 ff. 

2 James Ward, Mind, " Ps^xhological Principles," No. 45. See also the 
same author's article," Psjxholog}' " in the Ency. Brit. 



A7t Analysis of Willing. 29 

utitary movements presuppose and are developed from invol- 
untary. We find, then, that our ability to perform any ex- 
ternal act at first depends upon our ability accurately to pic- 
ture to ourselves how the necessar}^ movement feels, i. e.^ to 
reproduce the sensations which have previously arisen from 
muscle and joint during its performance. These sensations 
have been called the kinaesthetic impressions ; and they are 
of the greatest importance in learning any new movement. 
But after an act has been performed a number of times, the 
kinaesthetic impressions are no longer called up, but more 
remote sensations, often of sight or even of the consequences 
of them are all that are necessary for the successful accom- 
plishment of the required movement. As Professor James has 
pointed out in his admirable chapter on the Will, ^ sensations 
which are of no practical importance tend to pass out of con- 
sciousness. When in learning to row, for example, I have by 
some chance taken a stroke in good form, my attempt to re- 
peat it consists in striving to reproduce they^^/ of that stroke, 
the kinaesthetic impression of that movement. Later, however, 
when I have by practice become more expert in the art, I am 
guided by the more remote sensations derived from sight or 
so\md. 

But besides these representations of the more or less remote 
results of the action, concerning the presence of which psy- 
chologists are agreed, is there aught else present ? Miinster- 
berg agrees with the ordinary description of volition so far as 
to admit that there is also present a feeling of inner activity.^ 
How he proposes to explain this activity-feeling, we shall 
learn in a short time. Let us now, however, turn to the 
same author's statement of the problem before us : " Modern 
Psychology names the last analysable elements into which 
the content of consciousness can be divided sensations " 
(Empfindungeny The will, then, so far as we are concerned 



^ James, The Principles of Psychology, Vol. II., pp. 486-594. 
^ Miinsterberg, Die Willenshandlung , pp. 60-63. 



30 The Will. 

with it, is only a complex of sensations. " The group of 
sensations which we name will, may by its complexity and 
constancy be distinguished from other sensations, yet the ele- 
ments which result from the analysis are coodinate with the 
elements of ideas. Our problem then is to determine what 
intensity, quality, and feeling tone belong to this group of 
sensations w^hich we call Will." ^ 

This statement seems to me to beg the question in a very 
obvious fashion in favor of the position ]\Iiinsterberg is con- 
cerned to maintain. The statement that sensations are the 
last elements into which our conscious phenomena can be an- 
alysed, is true only of those elements which enter into com- 
pounds, or form parts of an objective representation.^ The 
Will, the primary activity of the self, cannot be known as an 
idea like other ideas, as Berkeley long ago maintained. And 
to seek for a definite state of consciousness with a fixed indi- 
viduality of its own is to rest the problem, it seems to me, 
upon a fundamental misapprehension of the nature of con- 
scious states. Miinsterberg seems to demand that there 
should be found some peculiar individual state of conscious- 
ness which we call Will, and failing to find this he seeks no 
further. Wundt, in the article above referred to, excellently 
describes this tendency to substantialize the content of con- 
sciousness. " For the adherents of this theory the mind is a 
bundle of presentations {Vorstelhcfigefi.) Like the perma- 
nent objects of the outer world to which they refer, the pre- 
sentations are supposed to modify each other in our conscious- 
ness ; but, at the same time, to constitute for us only objects 
of passive observation. We can add nothing to them, nor 
take anything from them. Our own activity is only a pre- 
sentation, which, like all others, is subject only to our obser- 
vation. What is not given to us in this way does not exist. 



^Miinsterberg, Die Willenshandliing , p. 62. 

' Cf. Wundt, " Zur Lehre von den Gemiithsbewegungen," Phil. Studien. 
VI, p. 384. 



An Analysis of Willing. 31 

Our will, therefore, must be a presentation which is analy- 
sable into definite sensations that can be traced back to some 
physiological stimulus." ^ 

It is clear that this strictly intellectual account of con- 
sciousness is entirely mythological. The true view is rather 
that there are three 'aspects' in every conscious state, all of 
which are essential in making it what it is. These aides 
which belong to every conscious process are : (i) knowledge 
of its signification ; (2) its ' emotive ' or ' affective ' aspect ; 
the way, that is, in which it affects me ; (3) the manner in 
which I relate myself to it. This latter element, it appears 
to me, is known as directly as either of the others. We 
name the state according to its signification for knowledge, 
and fall into the mistake of supposing that this aspect com- 
pletely exhausts its content. Dr. Miinsterberg contents him- 
self with analyzing the content of consciousness into so many 
' phenomena ' each having a definite content and remaining 
what it is, altogether independently of its relation to the 
subject. He materializes the phenomena of consciousness 
and makes the self a mere onlooker. Then, since it is found 
there is no such phenomena in the case of Will to analyze 
and name, the conclusion is reached that the latter can be at 
the bottom only 'a complex of sensations.' Not sensations 
nor reproduction of sensations as such constitute the phe- 
nomena of Will, but sensations and their reproductions 
which stand in definite relations to one another and to the 
spiritual essence.'^ A mental state is not something whose 
signification is known out of all relation to the self ; but the 
attitude of the self to the sensation is an element in its 
nature which must not by any means be neglected. The 
content of the mental state on its knowing side has a more 
stable constitution than that of the feeling and willing aspects. 



^Wundt, "Zur Lehre von den Gemiithsbewegungen" P;^//. Stud., VI, p. 
384-85. 

^Lipps, Vier.f. w. Phil., Bd. XIII, p. 177. 



32 The Will 

The former element being of 7nore practical significaiice is 
the only one connoted by the name given to it. This ele- 
ment also enters into more complex states of knowledge, 
while our relation to it which the name does not describe, 
and which cannot be named, does not form an element of 
higher compounds and so is often overlooked/ 

To return to Dr. Miinsterberg's analysis of Will. The es- 
sence of the volitional he finds as we have seen in the 
feeling of inner activity ; but in accordance with his work- 
ing presuppositions this activity can be nothing more than 
certain substantive states of mind. Dr. Miinsterberg first 
examines the case where the will is confined to the control 
of attention and the direction of the processes of thought. 
In all cases of Voluntary change of content, these preceded 
the clear consciousness of any representation another state 
which, in regard its content, already contained the former. 
In every case of involuntary change there was no element 
preceded the new state which contained it. When I arrive 
at a through b by involuntary association, these states may 
have certain characteristics in common, biit b does not con- 
tain a. When, on the contrary, I think of a and seek it in 
my memory, what I perceive is not ;/ nevertheless it is some- 
thing which agrees with it in content. So long as a is not 
found, I perceive only an x ; but this x exists in a series of 
relations through which it can be known only as a and 
nothing else." 

Let us now examine this somewhat detailed statement a 
little more closely, using the concrete example which 
Miinsterberg himself employs, that of trying to recall a 
name. " I try to think of a word, I remember the place 



^Since the above was wTitten this point has been much more clearly and 
fully worked out by Professor Andrew Seth. ' E\'identh- if phenomena or 
objects of Consciousness are alone to be accepted as facts,' says Professor 
Seth, ' then all real acti^dty on the part of the subject is necessarily elim- 
inated.' Man's Place in the Cosmos, pp. 94, ff. 

"^ Die Willenshandlung , pp. 67, if. 



An Analysis of Willing. 33 

where I read it, I know exactly its meaning, but it is not 
present ; finally it comes to me. Now that word is fully 
given as to its content in the previous state of conscious- 
ness." ^ For my own part, I fail to understand what mean- 
ing is here to be given to the phrase "as to its content." 
The name is not contained in the previous state, but is only 
connected with this by many lines of association. Nor is it 
true that only the name can result and nothing besides. In 
some cases, all our efforts to remember may prove fruitless. 
The X still remains an x and no definite value can be 
assigned to it. Or the wrong word may be recalled and mis- 
taken for the one of which we are in search. It does not 
seem that this criterion serves adequately to distinguish 
voluntary thought processes from the results of involuntary 
association. In the latter case, as in the former, any state of 
consciousness must have been preceded by another or others 
which were related to it in some way. But it is an un- 
disputed fact, that in the one case there is ah x^ a state 
whose content is not determinate, present to consciousness. 
This is of course not a representation with any definite con- 
tent, (the X in so far as it is an x has no content), but it is 
the mere form of voluntary iviiling. If some thought or 
word is sought for, the x is the consciousness of this striving 
as directed towards some goal. In a chain of reasoning, the 
goal to be arrived at is indeed generally present, and de- 
termines the steps of the thought process. The representa- 
tion of the end, however, does not contain the conclusion ; 
for the latter may be directly opposed to it. 

It does not seem to me that this analysis which Miinster- 
berg has given is convincing, or the immediate evidence of 
our consciousness can be so lightly set aside. The belief 
that we are agents, however, Miinsterberg accounts for in 
two ways. First, when a train of thinking is going on 
smoothly, we have no especial consciousness of the activity 



^ Miinsterberg, Die Wille7ishandlung, p. 67. 



34 The Will, 

of the will. Reflection, nevertheless persuades us that we 
have been active by the use of the most important criterion, 
that the representation of the completed act in such cases was 
always present to consciousness in the previous moment. 
For this reason, then, we conclude that we have been agents. 
But, as a matter of fact, "we can only will a so long as it re- 
mains in us ; and so long as it remains, we cannot, as em- 
pirical personalities, set it aside. Our Will in this case 
means only that a has remained in our consciousness, that 
the content of every moment was already contained in the 
foregoing state." ^ 

Furthermore, if we are conscious of our own activity dur- 
ing the action itself as we are sometimes in thinking and 
must always be in bodily actions, this feeling can be analyzed 
into feelings of strain in the organs or a tightening of the 
skin of the head. Now it is doubtless true that inner mani- 
festations of Will are invariably accompanied by such bodily 
feelings. If we tr}^ to discover the phenomena of volition, 
these are the only explicit ' states of consciousness ' which 
can be named and described. Yet these bodily sensations are 
not themselves the feeling of activity, nor do they constitute 
the essence of Will. They may often fuse with this latter 
feeling or be mistaken for it, but yet it is possible by intro- 
spection to distinguish the activity feeling from such strain 
sensations. These bodily sensations which often remain after 
the feeling of activity has disappeared ; and, moreover, after 
they have vanished, they can be recalled. The feeling of 
inner activity, on the other hand, is a something altogether 
sui ge7teris^ and expresses certain relations of the ego and its 
content, as opposed to the passive side of representations, 
which we objectify. The feeling of activity is that which 
constitutes chiefly our immediate experience of the self, with- 
out which bodily sensations would not be experiences at all. 
" How can one," asks Lipps, " seek in anything which be- 



^ Miinsterberg, Die Willenshandlung , p. 70. 



An Ajialysis of Willhig. 35 

longs to the world, that feeling of effort by means of which 
what is and happens both in the external world, and in the 
world of the body, become for our consciousness an object of 
doing or suffering." ^ In the case of involuntary changes of 
content, the new ideas appear as something foreign to our- 
selves, something belonging to the Non-ego. In the case of 
voluntary alterations of conscious content, through the 
agency of the feeling of activity, they are known as mine ; 
i. e.^ as belong to me in a peculiar sense. How then can this 
feeling, in virtue of which the world is first made ours^ or is 
opposed to us, be attributed to any element of the world 
itself? In thus defining the feeling as that which expresses 
the relation of opposition between the self and the world of 
objective phenomena, we must remember that this definition 
is not identical with the fact given in immediate perception. 
The sigitification of the feeling is discovered only by reflec- 
tion ; in actual experience itself, there is no knowledge or no 
separation of what is given as inner and outer." It does seem 
to me, however, that we do know of feelings and volitions 
immediately, in the same way as cognitions are known, and 
not merely through results. When we voluntarily attend to 
any object, our attention is withdrawn from other objects. 
Instead of being diffused and occupied equally with several 
representations, it is focused upon a single point. This 
forms, for the time, the centre around which our thoughts 
cluster ; and the point into agreement with which they must 
be brought. But this feeling which attends the narrowing of 
consciousness is not the reason why we feel ourselves active, 
or, in other words, the feeling of activity is not merely the 
cognizance of the contraction of consciousness ; for in cases 
where some striking event or object fills consciousness, we 



' Lipps, " Bemerkungen Zur Theorie d. Gefiihl," Vier. f. w. Ph. Bd. XIII, 
p. 190. 

"^ Cf. Wundt, "Zur Lehre von den Gemiithsbewegungen," Phil. Sttid,, 
VI. 



36 The Will. 

have the contraction without the activity experience. The 
mere predominance or permanence in consciousness of any 
idea is not, then, sufficient to explain this feeling. As Mr. 
Ward says : " It is ob\'iously impossible that what is a con- 
stituent in every psychical event, can be explicable in terms 
of psychical events. And the demand for such an explana- 
tion leads logically to a tacit denial of any heterogeneity in 
mind at all."^ Nevertheless, ]\Ir. Ward seems to hold that 
attention can never be known per se. It is rather a neces- 
sary inference, a sine qua 71011 of explanation than a fact which 
can be knowm immediately. He writes : " It is neither a pre- 
sentation nor a relation among presentations, nor, strictly 
speaking, an unanalysable element in the presentations them- 
selves. An unanalysable element in every state of mind, I 
admit, but one which even in reflective consciousness is never 
directly presented. I see no very serious objection to saying 
that all we know about it is an intellectual construction, or 
even an inference, provided that it be allowed that every 
proposition in psychology is completely eviscerated if this 
inference is neglected." " 

Hoffding also argues against an immediate cognition of the 
activity of the self. Such a state, he contends, if immediately 
perceived, must be simple and unconnected like our sense im- 
pressions. It must appear with a definite quality w^hich is as 
little to be mistaken as the quality of the sensation of color. 
Now, activity and passivity are only relative notions which 
are indicated by a greater or less concentration of conscious- 
ness. To what ofrade of concentration does this feeling: cor- 
respond. There can be no such characteristic mark or crite- 
rion of W^ill; for if there were, there could be no mistakes in 
practical life. But, as a matter of fact w^here a volition can- 
not at once be put into effect, we can never be certain that 



^ James Ward, Mind, No. 45, p. 66. 

* James Ward, Mind, No. 48, p. 570. Cf. Also the article, " Psychology,' 
in the Enc\'. Brit. 



An A^ialysis of Willing. 37 

our resolution has been made, that it will not be ' sicklied 
o'er with the pale cast of thought. ' Our only criterion is the 
experience of our own character. ^ 

These arguments seem to me to rest upon the same implicit 
demand which has been so often referred to in this chapter; the 
demand for some definite conditions of consciousness which 
can be classified as phenomena of will, each having a fixed con- 
tent which is as definite as a color tone. But our argument 
has gone to show that just because the Will is indispensable 
to all mental life, it is difficult to discover any special mental 
state to which we can point and say, ' lo, it is here.' As we 
do not base our notion of the self upon any particular feeling 
or representation, neither can we do so in the case of the 
Will. Further, in reply to Hoffding's objection, we may say 
that there is nothing to prevent a decision which has once 
been made from coming up again for consideration. Bvery 
decision regarding the future is made only hypothetically ; 
and another day may bring additional light, or a different 
frame of mind. But Hoffding urges, further, that even when 
we appear to be most clearly conscious of a resolution, when 
it is so explicit that we say ' I will,' the real deciding point 
does not lie here, but the whole matter was really determined 
much earlier. The explicit ' fiat ' is often only the official 
expression of that which has been already decided. 

It is no doubt true that in such cases the decision consists 
in referring the act under consideration to some end previ- 
ously adopted, as a permanent principle of action. In this 
way, many of our customary acts are decided at once with 
reference to some such end. But if the act of volition is ex- 
plicit, it marks the termination of a conflict between that end 
and some other lines of conduct. A mere subsumption would 
take place quietly, almost unconsciously. The ' I will ' do this 
or that, shows that something else has entered into competition 
with it, that the end has tottered on its throne ; or that up to 



Hoffding, Outlines of Psychology, (Eng. trans.) pp. 340 ff. 



38 The Will; 

this time the minor premise of the practical syllogism, ' this 
is a case of that kind ' has been wanting/ 

We now return to our analysis of Will, and shall consider 
two cases representing respectively an explicit act of inner 
volition, and an external act of Will. In what does the 
essence of an act of inner volition consist ? Suppose that we 
take the case where there are two alternatives offering them- 
selves to us, and suppose that after deliberation, A is chosen 
although B has stronger immediate attracting power. How 
shall we describe the act of will by means of which A is 
chosen ? 

If we leave out of account the various processes of sensa- 
tional strains which accompany the volition, as well as the 
representation of the various consequences of the alternatives 
under consideration, we must say that the essential moment 
of will consists in fixing the one alternative before us by 
means of the selective attention. Putting our analysis in 
terms of content, we may say that the volition is the imme- 
diate feeling of activity, plus the steadiness and predomi- 
nance in consciousness of A. When we can attend to A 
solely and continuously, then, as Professor James says, it is 
willed. " We have thus reached the heart of our inquiry 
when we ask by what process it is that the thought of any- 
thing comes to prevail stably in the mind. . . . We see that 
attention with effort is all that any case of volition implies. 
The essential achievement of the zvill in shoj't^ when it is 
most voluntary^ is to attend to a difficult object^ a?td hold it 
fast before the 7}iindy - Notwithstanding this excellent 
statement, however, the tendency of James's analysis is to 
make too little of the conscious activity involved in volun- 
tary experience, and to describe the volition purely from the 
side of content. When this is done, the alternative chosen 
seems to fill consciousness because of its superior attractive- 



^h.TisX.oW'^.Nicomeachean Ethics., Bk. VII. 
"^Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, p. 561. 



An A?talysis of Willing. 39 

ness. In other words, the subject appears to be passive 
rather than active. This is probably the danger in putting 
the description of an act of will solely in terms of attention. 
Or, perhaps, we should say that it ought to be remembered 
that the attention is not merely the power of raising certain 
mental processes to a greater degree of intensity ; but is also 
an intellectual function which has the power of relating and 
incorporating ideas with the rest of our experience. It is not 
entirely true, then, it seems to me, to describe a case of de- 
liberate willing as a mere act of holding a representation in 
consciousness. The idea which has been chosen has been 
adopted, not merely on account of its greater intensity as a 
process in consciousness, but because of its significance and 
its coherence with the permanent ends of our life. This in- 
tellectual function of attention or will is very clearly brought 
out by Professor Baldwin in the following quotation : " The 
attention moves through the series of elements, grasping, re- 
lating, retaining, selecting, and when the integration it effects 
swells and fills consciousness, that is the ' fiat.' Just as soon as 
the elements of the end cease to act as partial influences caus- 
ing the movements of attention by their vividness, and the at- 
tention gets its hold upon the integrated content, the fiat goes 
forth." ^ 

There is no new element added to the volition as a psycho- 
logical fact when the act becomes an external one, and effects 
some change in the world of objects. The arguments of 
James ^ and Miinsterberg ^ seem quite convincing against the 
existence of any special innervation feelings ; and even Wundt 
has modified his position on this question. * It is not neces- 
ary that we should first have the volition as an internal fact, 
and then add something to it to get external volition. The 



^Baldwin, Feelhigs and Will, p. 355. 

''■Principles of Psychology, Vol. II,, pp. 494 ff. 

^ Die Willenshandlung , pp. 75 ff. 

* Grundziige de7' Physiol. Psychologie, 3**' Aufl., Bd. I, pp. 400 ff. 



40 The Will. 

truth rather seems to be that the division between internal 
and external volition is itself an artificial one. Every state 
of consciousness has its physical side. A volition is at once 
a psychological fact, and a moving force in the external 
world. As James says : " We do not first have a sensation or 
a thought, and then have to add something to it to get a 
movement. Movement is the natural immediate effect of 
feeling, irrespective of what the quality of the feeling may 
be. It is so in reflex action, it is so in emotional expression, 
it is so in voluntary life. " ^ 

No analysis of deliberate acts of will, however, is complete 
w^hich does not take account of the subordination of particu- 
lar acts under a permanent end. In order to complete the 
analysis of such an act of volition we pass on to a brief treat- 
ment of this subject. 

In impulsive actions, there is no reference to anything be- 
yond the act itself. There is present in such cases a loss of 
equilibrum in the psychical condition, and a more or less dis- 
tinct desire of something to be realized ; but there is no con- 
ception of an end under which the action is to be brought, or 
to which it is referred. End and means in this case coincide. 
Impulsive actions may be defined as movements which follow^ 
immediately the perception of the inciting object. There is 
nothing beyond the immediate act present to consciousness, 
and so there can be no thought of an end. The actions of 
children and of animals are almost altogether of this sort. 
Mankind, however, does not remain at this stage, but in virtue 
of his reason soon rises above it. " Human Will is not de- 
termined by that only which excites, that is, immediately 
affects the senses ; but we possess the power to overcome the 
impressions made on the faculty of our sensuous desires by 
representing to ourselves what in a more distant way may be 
useful or hurtful. These considerations of what is desirable 



^Principles of Psychology, Vol. II., p. 527. 



A7t Analysis of Willing. 41 

with regard to our whole state, that is of what is good and 
useful, are based entirely on reason."^ It is man's ability to 
hold before himself possibilities as yet unattained, which be- 
come for him laws, that makes him capable of reaching a 
higher intellectual and moral plane than the animals. 

Besides the impulse to preservation of life and offspring 
which man shares with the lower animals, and which necessi- 
tates some union for the sake of protection, there are 
other irresolvable tendencies which we regard as peculiarly 
human. The first of these is the feeling of sympathy in the 
pleasure or pains of another, in virtue of which we are able to 
identify ourselves with him, and for the time to make his ends 
ours. Thus we speak of a man who is incapable of sympathy 
as inhuman. The second of these peculiarly human impulses 
may be called the intellectual motive. The animal intellect 
is the servant of desires and appetites, and is only called 
into action through their demands. At first, indeed, in the his- 
tory both of the individual and the race, it is practical needs 
which arouse intellectual activity. The end at this stage is set 
by some practical necessity, and the intellect is moved to seek 
means for relief. But while these practical needs must always 
remain ends for us, man as an intellectual being finds satisfac- 
tion in the exercise of thought for its own sake ; and without 
any practical end in view, reflects upon phenomena and their 
relations, purely for the pleasure which such activity brings. 
The result of this reflection is speech. It has been well 
remarked that animals do not speak because they have noth- 
ing to say. They never exercise their faculties for the sake 
of discovering truth, but always with some practical end in 
view. Man, on the other hand, in virtue of this intellectual 
impulse is able to make truth his goal, and to discover facts 
regarding phenomena and their relations which he expresses 
in language. 

But if these were the only additional equipment of a man^ 



Kant Kr. d. r. V., (Miiller's Trans.), p. 688. 



42 The Will. 

they would involve him in hopeless realism with himself. 
Sympathy and self love, egoism and altruism come into 
irreconcilable conflict. In the region of theoretical reason, 
too, oppositions and antinomies arise. In overcoming these 
discords and contradictions, man realizes the highest goal of 
his intellectual and moral nature. It is the last class of 
human impulses which leads us to seek a harmony, a union 
in the play of different motives, and agreement and order in 
the phenomena of our intellectual life. Just as in the intel- 
lectual sphere the highest pleasure is experienced when 
" unity is introduced into the manifold," so the center of 
our soul life which is disturbed and pained by the clash of 
disharmonious motives conceives the idea of a union in a 
supreme end which will include in itself and harmonize all 
the ends of life. Reason, as Kant tells us, is a " function of 
unity." In its speculative employment, it leads us to postu- 
late an absolute synthesis, and furnishes the conceptions of 
truth and beauty, the ideals of Science and of Art. When 
it is practical, it seeks to subordinate conflicting desires to a 
higher principle. It seeks beside the many things which we 
name goods, one Supreme Good in which these other goods 
are taken up, and through comparison with which their rela- 
tive values are assigned. This impulse after unity introduces 
order and harmony into the soul, and so plays the same part 
as Justice in Plato's Republic. Just how this highest good, 
this unconditional end, is to be defined is a question to which 
different ages and peoples have given very different answers. 
Why this is so w^e shall see later. At present, we can say 
that man's potentiality of advancement depends upon the 
presence of these ends. 

To the lower animals, even if they had the power of set- 
ting before themselves ends to be realized, the pleasure or 
pain of another, or the intellectual ideals of humanity, would 
not appeal. These are ends to us because we will them, and 
we will them because in virtue of our humanity they are in- 
teresting to us. These intellectual and moral impulses are 



An Analysis of Willing. 43 

not, however, so strong and irresistible as the animal 
appetites. These latter have to provide for the production 
and maintenance of life itself, and consequently are more 
imperative in their demands. The distinctly human im- 
pulses, on the other hand, are rather gentle forces which 
work imperceptibly in the individual and the race, and the 
ends which they prescribe are not so irresistible as to compel 
man to embrace them. Often the more urgent demands of 
life crowd them out of sight, and they fail to make their in- 
fluence felt. This may happen in the moral sphere through 
either the altruistic or the egoistic impulses (more frequently 
the latter) assuming such proportions that they dominate the 
whole life ; e. g.^2. man may be so consistently selfish that no 
conflict is felt. But where this lack of harmony does exist, 
it may lead to a desire to overcome the disunion, or the in- 
dividual may be swayed in turn by selfish and unselfish 
motives. When the latter is the case, his life is made up of 
incongruous parts, and does not form a consistent whole. 

It is now necessary to consider the part which environment 
plays in prescribing ends for the individual. We have 
hitherto spoken as if the ends of life were wholly prescribed 
by peculiarly human influences. While it is no doubt true that 
the form is wholly or in part prescribed by natural impulse, 
yet the content of the end is largely determined by external 
influence. The intellectual development of the individual, 
the moral status of the community to which he belongs, or of 
the persons with whom he is most intimately associated, pre- 
scribe to a large extent the ideals which appeal to him. It 
is a familar truth that example is more forcible than precept, 
and that a man may be known by the company he keeps. 
Every society has certain norms of conduct which it prescribes 
for its members, certain standards to which it expects them 
to conform. These are adopted by the individual in a blind 
unconscious way, and become part of himself. He breathes 
them in with the air, and, since they are the common prop- 
erty of society, they form a bond of union between the indi- 



44 The Will 

vidual members. The common stock of hopes and fears, wants 
and pleasures, constitute the solidarity of mankind. These 
ideals are as much a part of the inheritance of the individual 
as his language. 

Yet these norms can not in every circumstance of life lay 
down a complete code of conduct for the individual. And 
again, these ends may conflict with his own natural impulses 
or appetites. In the first instance, the individual will strive 
to bring the act under some general principle by which he 
has been guided in the past, and in doing so, will give it a 
concrete content and make it a reality to himself. Or, if the 
end prescribed by society runs counter to his own inclina- 
tions, a conflict will ensue which may result either in his re- 
jecting the end, or in affirming it for himself. In the latter case, 
he has by affirming it made it his own, and identified himself 
with it. If a boy, e. g,^ has been taught the rightness of truth 
speaking, he may assent to the principle without really adopt- 
ing it for himself. It is to him abstract and unreal, and with- 
out content. But after having affirmed this principle in con- 
crete cases, after, it may be, having brought all kinds of de- 
ception under the same category as lying, this end gains for 
him a wealth of meaning, and a reality which it did not before 
possess. After having acted in accordance with this princi- 
ple until it becomes a custom, it may become again less con- 
crete. To speak with Hegel, we might say that the end was 
at first abstract and universal, then became concrete and en- 
riched with details, and that finally these concrete cases were 
taken up into the universal. But it is no longer the blank, 
abstract universal vrith which we started, but a concrete 
universal which includes within itself the meanings of the sec- 
ond stage. 

But it must be remembered the end is not strictly speak- 
ing something distinct from the individual. In truth, the end 
to be an end at all must be something with which the indi- 
vidual has identified himself. It must form part of the per- 
manent centre which constitutes for the time being himself. 



An Analysis of Willing. 45 

The act by which he strives to realize that end is the expres- 
sion of his own character. Kven when there are two or more 
competing lines of conduct presented to us, we can not speak 
of any of them as ends except in an anticipatory way. At 
first they are all representations external to the self ; when 
afterwards one is chosen, it is taken up into the self, and the 
rejected possibilities are to us henceforth as nothing. 

We have been all along attempting to show the close con- 
nection between speculative and practical Reason. In 
the former not less than in the latter, we have one end 
which we strive to realize. What we keep before ourselves 
in thinking, as the goal towards which our efforts are di- 
rected, is the completion of the process itself ; the under- 
standing and clear perception of a system of relations which 
-we think of as already existing in reality, whatever meaning 
we attach to reality. In willing, the end sought for is some 
new condition or event which we wish to call into being. 
Yet the two processes are not essentially different, and cannot 
be divorced from each other. While Will cannot be de- 
rived from thinking, or thought from Will, yet each process 
involves the other. At least all cases of conscious volition 
involve thought, and are in fact only an application of the 
practical syllogism. In other words, " every action implies 
a sense of a general principle, and the applying of that prin- 
ciple to a particular case, or it implies desire for some end 
coupled with perception of the means necessary for attaining 
the end. " ^ And we have already had occasion more than 
once to refer to the fact that thought involves Will, and is 
really a series of selections. . 

IT 



1 Sir A. Grant, The Ethics of Aristotle, Vol. I., p. 266. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE PSYCHO-PHYSICAL PROBLEM. 

i\lthough " volition is a psychic or moral event pure and sim- 
ple, and is absolutely completed when the stable state of the 
idea is there," ^ yet it seems to produce effects in the external 
world. The most immediate result of such an outer act of will 
is a movement, due to some modification of muscular tissue. It 
is not, however, the fact that there are movements which 
seems to demand explanation, but that these movements 
should correspond to, and seem to obey, states of consciousness. 
Though there remain many gaps for physical science to fill in 
before we can understand exactly what takes place in the dif- 
ferent stages of the volitional process, yet we can not doubt that 
as a physiological event it can be accounted for mechanically. 
Nevertheless the direction of nerve currents, the fact that 
the organism is directed and controlled according to the idea 
of certain ends, seems to indicate a connection between the 
two series — indeed at first sight it points to the dependence 
of physical phenomena upon psychical. On the other hand, 
there are certain facts which point to the dependence of 
mental states upon physiological processes. In the first place, 
it is to be noted that the psychic phenomena with which psy- 
chology busies itself, do not form a continuous series. There 
are gaps which it seems impossible to fill up completely from 
the mental side. Consciousness appears in the first place to 
derive all its original material in the form of sensations 
through the media of the brain and nervous system. These 
organs seem to hand over to consciousness ' the raw material ' 
of sensation, and to be constantly introducing foreign matter 
into the thought series. It is undeniable at the same time that 
the nature of psychic states, and even their existence, is con- 



James, Principles of Psychology , VoL II., p. 560. 



The Relation of Mind and Body. 47 

ditioned equally by the character of consciousness itself ; but 
in sensation we always seem forced to refer for an explana- 
tion to something further, something outside of ourselves. 
And not only is this the case in sensation, but also in explain- 
ing the connections of the psychical content, we are often 
obliged to put our account in terms of brain and nerve physi- 
ology. Professor Wundt remarks : " Since the connection of 
representations in our consciousness refers everywhere to con- 
ditions which lie outside of consciousness, and therefore can 
not be given to us in the form of mental phenomena, Psy- 
chology will be not seldom under the necessity of having re- 
source to physiological investigation. In cases where the 
causal connection of inner experiences seems to be inter- 
rupted, it is necessary to give an account of those physical 
phenomena which run parallel to them. With this object in 
view, the Psychology of sensation calls the Physiology of the 
sense organs to its assistance. And, in the same way, the 
explanation of the changes of conscious states can not refrain 
from referring to the Psychology of the brain." ^ 

This apparent reciprocal dependence of mind and brain, 
forces upon us the question regarding their exact relation. 
This is a most perplexing problem and one for which we can- 
not perhaps expect to find a complete solution. It may not 
be in vain, however, to state the problem clearly, and endeavor 
to come face to face with the difficulties involved in it. There 
are at least two questions which we can keep separate from 
each other. The first is the problem which science, adopt- 
ing as it does the common sense standpoint, must raise in re- 
gard to the relation it is warranted in predicating between 
the phenomena with which Physiology and Psychology deal. 
It is, one may say, a methodological question regarding the 
most profitable way in which these sciences shall carry on 
their investigations. The other question is metaphysical, 
and is concerned with the ultimate nature of body and 



Wundt, Essays, p. 116. 



48 The Will 

mind. It has to attempt to discover a tenable theory 
of the ultimate underlying unity in virtue of which these 
different classes of phenomena can both belong to the same 
world. We have every reason to suppose that all states of 
consciousness are accompanied by corresponding nervous 
states. We know that any considerable change in the physi- 
cal organism, particularly in the brain, is attended by dis- 
turbances in the mental sphere. We also became convinced, in 
analysing the phenomena of Will, that when any representa- 
tion fills consciousness a muscular movement at once follows. 
Further, we may point to the fact of the quantitative relation 
between the external stimulus and the resulting sensation 
which has been formulated by Weber's law. All these facts 
of correspondence seem to indicate that the two series are not 
ultimately separated, but belong in some way to the same 
world. ^ 

The question which will first concern us is that regarding 
the relation which, from the scientific standpoint, we are war- 
ranted in predicating between mental and physical phenome- 
na. There are at least three possible attitudes toward this 
question. The first of these conceives it to be the business of 
science to limit itself to some particular field, and to attempt 
to find invariable connections and sequences between the phe- 
nomena in that field. The science of Psychology deals with 
" the uniformities of succession, the laws whether ultimate 
or derivative, according to which one mental state succeeds 
another. ". - The subject matter of neurology is the nervous 
system and its functions and changes. There must then be 
no confusion of the respective spheres of these two sciences. 
" Functions of the brain may correspond to, or may hold 
some other relation to mind ; yet mind and brain are not the 
same, the study of the brain is not the study of the mind, 
physiology of the nervous system is not psychology. ^ 



^ An excellent account of the parallels and analogies of the two series is 
given by HoflFding, Outlines of Psychology, (^Eng. trans.) Chap. II. 
^'Mill, System of Logic, Book VI., Chap. IV. ^ 
'Scripture, " The Problem of Psychology," Mind, No. 63. 



The Relation of Mind and Body. 49 

It is no doubt often advantageous and desirable where one 
series can not be completed, where some of its links are 
wanting, to give the corresponding links of the parallel series. 
However, where this done, it can never be regarded as a final 
explanation. This can only be done — to quote again from Dr. 
Scripture's article referred to above — " with the recognition 
that they are but te7nporary substitutes.'^'^ While thus limit- 
ing Physiology and Psychology to a particular sphere, the 
question is still left open as to the ultimate relation of the 
phenomena with which they deal. " It is not to be under- 
stood that by this limitation of the problem of psychology 
any opinion whatever is expressed regarding the relation be- 
tween mental phenomena and bodily phenomena. Let the 
relation be what it will, the question must be kept out of 
psychology." ^ One cannot but approve heartily of such a 
clear statement of the subject-matter of the two sciences. It 
cannot be doubted either, that a protest is called for against 
the tendency discernible in the writings of some psycholo- 
gists, to explain mental phenomena by furnishing a more or 
less mythical account of what takes place in the brain. 

There is, however, another set of facts which is not in- 
cluded in either of these sciences, which we may call the fact 
of the corresponde7ice of the physiological and the mental 
series. If we say that it is the province of physiological-psy- 
chology to investigate the correspondences and connections of 
the two series, the question inevitably recurs concerning 
the relation which such a science is able to predicate regard- 
ing the relation of the two kinds of phenomena with which 
it deals. It may be said that it is the business of a science, 
as a science, to discover uniformities of action, invariable se- 
quences between phenomena. As a science, it knows nothing 
of any bond linking the phenomena together, or of any action 
or interaction between antecedent or consequent. It professes 
only to discover sequences and uniform modes of acting. 



^ Scripture, " The Problem of Psychology," Mind, No. 63. 



50 The Will. 

Nevertheless, we do call " that antecedent which is invariably 
present when the phenomena follows, and invariably ab- 
sent when the latter is absent, other circumstances remain- 
ing the same, the cause of the phenomena in these circum- 
stances." Shall we not use the same word in describing the 
relation between the phenomena with which physiological- 
psychology deals ? 

If the word ' cause ' denotes only invariable sequence, there 
can, of course, be no question about its use in this case. 
However, it must not be forgotten that, from its employment in 
describing the relations of phenomena in the material world, 
the term has taken on some peculiar shades of meaning 
which are altogether inapplicable in dealing with the phe- 
nomena of consciousness. This peculiar modification which 
has come to attach to the word ' cause ' in recent times is the 
result of the relation of equivalence, which we always think 
of as obtaining between the cause and effect in the material 
world.^ By ' equivalence ' we mean that the series is con- 
ceivably reversible, that cause and effect have the same 
power of doing work. This fact is expressed in the law of 
the conservation of energy. This law has come to be an 
axiom of modern physical science, and is a direct conse- 
quence of our postulate that the amount of matter in the 
universe remains constant. Now such a law can have no 
application for psychology, or for psycho-physics. If this is 
clearly recognized, it seems to be a mere matter of words 
whether we shall or shall not use the term ' cause ' to describe 
the relation between the phenomena with which these 
sciences deal. If we speak of causal connections between 
mental states, or between nervous states and states of con- 
sciousness, we must do it with the express recognition that 
here the principle of equivalence has no place. 

The second point of view is that held by the advocates of 
the so-called 'automaton theory.' This view can not be re- 



^Wundt, Ethik,'ist ed., p. 399. 



The Relation of Mutd and Body. 51 

garded as a mere indication of the proper subject-matter of 
physical and mental science ; it is a metaphysical theory 
which asserts the impossibilit}'- of any connection whatever 
between the physical and the mental world. However close 
and invariable is the connection between bodily movements 
and states of consciousness, yet in reality^ it is maintained, 
they go on in entire independence of each other. " But little 
reflection is required to show that consciousness does not 
make the mighty difference which is commonly supposed. 
Consciousness, when it is present, is the light which lightens 
the process, not the agent in its accomplishment. We are 
never conscious of the thing until the thing is. Conscious- 
ness does not go before the event, it only comes into being 
with its accomplishment." ^ From this point of view con- 
sciousness is a mere ' epi phenomenon,' a shadow which ' ought 
not to exist.' The advocates of this theory not only recog- 
nize the gulf which Descartes pointed out between matter 
and mind, but they make it absolute. There are three rea- 
sons urged for thus wrenching the world apart. First, the 
utter disparateness of the two kinds of phenomena ; secondly 
(and partly in consequence of the first), the impossibility of 
conceiving of any action or reaction between the two worlds ; 
and, thirdly, the direct consequences of the law of the con- 
servation of energy. 

All kinds of physical energy, it is said, are comparable be- 
cause they are all forms of motion, and can be reduced to a 
common measure, so many foot-pounds of work. States of 
mind, on the contrary, are incommensurable with any form 
of motion, and we do not therefore explain anything by refer- 
ring them to some physical event. Suppose that we grant 
this to be a valid ground for keeping the two sciences sepa- 
rate, yet the objection says nothing regarding the ultimate 
relations of members of the two series. The phenomenal dis- 



^Maudsley : "The Cerebral Cortex and its Work." Mind, XV, pp, 171- 
72. 



52 The Will 

parateness of the two series may be a reason for prohibiting 
a science which deals with one set of phenomena from ex- 
plaining by means of members of the other series ; but there 
is so far no ground for believing that this disparateness is the 
ultimate fact. The constant correspondences of the two series, 
and the fact, upon which I shall not dwell here, of the adapta- 
tion of the bodily movements to the external environment, 
forbids us to suppose that such an assertion as that of the au- 
tomatists is a final statement regarding the nature of the two 
series. There still remains the rational demand that the 
seeming disparateness of these spheres shall be harmonized. 
And the very fact that the phenomena of these two fields are 
manifested in conjunction, not only strengthens our belief in 
their ultimate unity, but shows that reconciliation is not im- 
possible. 

In the second place, it is asserted that the action of con- 
sciousness on brain, or of brain on consciousness is incon- 
ceivable. ' The passage from the physics of the brain to the 
facts of consciousness is unthinkable, ' and by unthinkable is 
meant picturable, " continuously imaginable.^ " It seems to 
me that, as before remarked, while this may be an argument 
for refusing to entangle psychology with physiological ex- 
planations, it can say nothing regarding the ultimate connec- 
tion of the different varieties of the real. The word ' incon- 
ceivable ' has, as Mill pointed out,- three meanings at least. 
Anything ma}^ be termed inconceivable which we are unable to 
believe. Thus it was inconceivable to the French peasant girl 
that the Germans could take Paris. Or, secondly, the term may 
refer to something which contradicts a fundamental law of our 
thinking, as that two and two should amount to five. Thirdly, 
any thing or any event may be pronounced inconceivable 
when we are unable to represent it by an image in our con- 
sciousness. It is manifestly in this last sense that action or 



^ Miinsterherg. Die WiUenshandhing , p. 27. 

''■Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, p. 150. 



The Relation of Mmd and Body, 53 

reaction between brain and consciousness is held to be in- 
conceivable. I can not picture to myself how ' the idea of a 
beefsteak should bind together molecules ' in such a way as in 
any way to modify my movements. We may say in general 
that we can only represent to ourselves what has been first 
presented. Since, then, this act on the part of consciousness 
(supposing it to take place) is never immediately known, it is 
plain that it must forever remain in this sense of the word 
'inconceivable.' We are apt, however, to talk as if there is 
no difficulty in conceiving just how one physical body acts 
upon another. The fire melts the wax before our eyes ; but, 
after Hume, we are compelled to admit that we have given 
only an antecedent and consequent, and know nothing of 
any bond which unites them. We can say too that after 
Lotze's analysis,' it is impossible to think of any state, or of 
any action, as passing over from cause to effect. Modern 
physicists, too, are abandoning the conception of a force which 
detaches itself from one object, and attaches itself to another, 
and beginning to admit that they know nothing regarding 
the nature of force at all — or rather to doubt whether or not 
there is anything which corresponds to that conception. It 
seems then the reciprocal action of brain and mind is incon- 
ceivable, in the sense that it is not ' continuously imagin- 
able ' how any one thing acts upon any other. We may per- 
haps admit that there is more difficulty in conceiving how 
any reaction could take place between mental and material 
phenomena, than there is in the case of physical causation, 
but this difference is not sufficient support for a metaphysical 
theory. 

The third, and perhaps the strongest argument for the inde- 
pendence of the two series, is taken from the law of the con- 
servation of energy. " According to the causal principle 
everywhere maintained in physiological investigations, we 
can speak of a causal connection between phenomena, only 



IvOtze, Metaphysics, Book I, Chap. V. 



54 The Will, 

when the effect can be derived from the cause according to 
definite laws. Such a derivation is possible only when we 
are dealing with homogenous phenomena. This derivation 
is consequently either thinkable or actually performable in 
the entire realm of outer phenomena, since an analysis al- 
ways leads back to some form of motion where the effect is 
represented as equivalent to the cause. That is, under spe- 
cial conditions, the causal relation can be reversed. . . It 
is evident that there can be no question of such an equiva- 
lence between our representations and the physiological phe- 
nomena which accompany them. As the effects of the latter, 
nothing but physical phenomena can ever come into existence. 
In this way alone is that closed system of nature possible 
which finds its most perfect expression in the law of the con- 
servation of energy. This law would be violated if any- 
where a physical cause should bring about a mental effect." ^ 
Thus also Scripture, in the article quoted above, writes : 
" There is one fundamental axiom on which Psychology can 
work, and without which it becomes involved in the mazes 
of theory. Mental phe7io7nena can not itifiuence^ or be i?ijlii- 
enced by 7naterial phe7i07nena. . . The discovery, the de- 
velopment, and the proof of the law of the conservation of 
energy by ]\Iayer, Helmholtz, and Joule, have rendered the 
opposite of the axiom inconceivable.'' - 

There can be no objection to these statements, in 
so far as they are to be understood merely as pre- 
scribing the limit for the physical sciences. It is a work- 
ing postulate of physiology, that material phenomena shall 
not be explained by anything except material phenomena ; 
and of psychology that ps\chical states shall be referred 
only to some antecedent psychical states. Yet this is not 
quite the same thing as the assertion which is so often 
made that ' mental phenomena can not influence, or be influ- 



^ Wundt, Essays^ Gchini und Seele. 

^ Scripture, " The Problem of Psychology," M:?id, Xo. 63. 



The Relation of Mind and Body. 55 

enced by physical phenomena.' Such a statement seems to 
dogmatise regarding the metaphysical question concerning 
the ultimate nature of body and mind. If it is true that the as- 
sertion is to be regarded as indicating the final truth regarding 
phenomenal facts — that in reality one set of phenomena pro- 
ceeds in entire independence of the other — it is difficult to 
understand how any metaphysical theory can overcome the 
dualism. Or, perhaps, it would be better to say that the state- 
ment is a metaphysical theory. But if, on the other hand, it is 
only intended to indicate the mode of procedure of the physical 
sciences, and the ideal which psychology must hold up for it- 
self, we must keep constantly in mind that this division is only 
a methodological one, and not a statement regarding reality 
itself. This is all that the writers from whom I have quoted 
mean to convey ; yet it seems to me that they have stated 
what is an axiom of science regarding its own mode of ex- 
plaining facts, as if it were an expression of the ultimate 
nature of these facts themselves. 

In the same way, it is not unusual for psychologists to take 
high ground when dealing with the law of the conservation 
of energy. It is not uncommon to find it referred to as 
' proven by Mayer, Helmholtz, and Joule,' or as ' 2. fact that has 
now been fully demonstrated.' A little consideration, how- 
ever, shows us that the law has never been proved — nor can 
it ever be — in the universal sense claimed for it. It would of 
course be forever impossible for physiologists, by means of ac- 
tual measurements, to demonstrate that the nervous processes 
which are attended by consciousness, do not influence the 
latter in any way, and are entirely uninfluenced by it. The 
law has been verified, with greater or less exactitude, in fields 
where consciousness can not be thought of as a factor. 
There has been no disproof of the influence of consciousness ; 
and, from the very nature of the case, there can be none. 
But it is sometimes claimed that although experience can 
never demonstrate to us this law, it is really identical with 
a law of our thought, being another form of the law of 



56 The Will 

persistence of matter/ To make this law a necessity of our 
thought, is simply an absurdity, in face of the fact that the ma- 
jority of mankind have never heard of it, and that many sci- 
entists do not understand it as anything more than ' a leading 
principle of natural science ;' ^ or 'a valid and useful working 
hypothesis under which we may bring certain classes of physi- 
cal phenomena.' As Professor Ladd says: "Even in the 
sphere of physical events, the law is as yet demonstrably true 
only to a limited extent. The various forms of physical en- 
ergy in the inorganic world are by no means yet all reducible 
to the terms of this law. . . . No mathematical formula, or 
picture framed by the imagination, has thus far bridged over 
the gap between the molecular energy of inorganic and that 
of organic structures. . . . Nerve force — what it is and what 
it will do ; what it is as judged by what it will do — cannot 
at present be correlated with any of the forms of energy 
which act as nervous stimuli.''^ ]\Iany examples might be 
given, not only of the incompleteness, but also of the actual 
impossibility of reducing all causal relations under the law 
of the correlation and conservation of physical energy. The 
ideal physical explanation is thus formulated by Du Bois 
Reymond : " Before the differential equations of the world 
formula can be formed, all natural phenomena must be re- 
duced to the movements of a substratum substantially homo- 
geneous, and therefore entirely destitute of quality, or of that 
which appears to us as heterogeneous matter — in other 
words all quality must be explained by the arrangement and 
motion of such a substratum."* 

Now, however far physical science may be from the attain- 
ment of such an ideal, it is useless to deny that its adoption 
has led to enormous advancement in the work of understand- 



^Miinsterberg, Die Willenshandlung, p. 9. 

^Hoffding, Outlines of Psychology, (Eng. trans.), p. 5S. 

'Ladd, Elements of Physiological Psychology, p. 657. 

*Du Bois Revmond, Ueber die Grenzen des Naturerkennens, p. 16. 



The Relatio7i of Mind aiid Body. 57 

ing natural phenomena and their modes of behavior. Mod- 
ern physiology owes, perhaps, all its success to the adoption of 
this point of view, and its abandonment of the principle of 
' vital force.' In accordance with this principle, every change 
in the organism has its ' chemical or ph3'sical equivalent either 
in the organism or without it.' Such hypotheses have justi- 
fied their adoption by proving themselves useful ; i. <?., by re- 
ducing to unity and definiteness the relations of what seems 
at first glance heterogeneous and disparate phenomena. So 
long, then, as we remember that we are dealing with method- 
ological hypotheses, no objection can or should be raised. 
But a protest must be urged against any attempt to make 
such hypotheses the basis for assertions respecting the ulti- 
mate constitution of things, and the universal order of nature. 
This is doubtless a danger to which scientific investigators 
are exposed, especially when dealing with long-standing hy- 
potheses. " So thoroughly axiomatic have the doctrines of 
the absolutely independent and passive existence of matter, 
and of the constitution of bodies as aggregates of absolutely 
constant physical units, become in the minds of modern physi- 
cists that they not only regard them as the indispensable 
foundations of the whole structure of physical science, but do 
not hesitate to use them as supports for professorial chairs of 
metaphysics." ^^ 

Biologists have almost given up the attempt to produce life 
artificially, and are constantly obliged to recognize a spon- 
taneity, a permanent centre of force which cannot be account- 
ed for on mechanical principles. Just in the same way, it 
seems to me, neurologists and physiologists may hold fast the 
law of the conservation of energy as a fruitful working hy- 
pothesis, without asserting dogmatically that life is only a play 
of molecules. This law should be regarded merely as a didac- 
tive or ' regulative ' principle, not as a metaphysical theory of 



^Stallo, The Concepts and Theories of Moder^i Physics. (Int. Scien" 
Series.), p. XIII. 



58 The Will 

the nature of ultimate facts. It may, perhaps, justly offend the 
scientific instincts of many persons to speak of consciousness 
^ binding molecules together,' or of ' the idea of a beefsteak as 
directing nervous currents ' in one direction rather than an- 
other. Statements of this kind are thoroughly false and ob- 
jectionable, because they invade the scientist's territory, 
as it were, and make use of the scientist's categories and 
conceptions to connect phenomena which, from the stand- 
point of the particular sciences, are not to be brought to- 
gether. Against any such a naive formulation of the rela- 
tion between body and mind, or against the attempt to make 
imaginable the connection between consciousness and brain, 
the law of the conservation of energy has its proper sphere and 
legitimate use. At the same time, we must remember that 
the assertion that ' mental states do not influence or are not 
influenced by material states,' is equally mischievous when it 
is understood as a metaphysical statement of ' parallelism ' or 
dualism. Hoffding, after enumerating very fully and clearly 
the correspondences between mind and body, writes : " We 
must assume that these parallels have a real significance ; 
there must be an inner connection between conscious life and 
the brain." ' 

But the law of the conservation of energy is sometimes 
assumed to be identical with the causal postulate itself ; or, at 
least, the want of equivalence between antecedent and conse- 
quent among the phenomena with which psycho-physics 
deals, is urged as a ground why we can never say that a 
causal relation exists. It is of course perfectly plain that no 
quantative equivalence is ever to be found between states of 
brain and states of consciousness, and that if this is to be the 
criterion of causality, we are forever excluded from postulat- 
ing such a relation. But the demand for explanation, which is 
the source of the causal postulate, does not seem to me neces- 
sarily to imply the fact of equivalence. We should still seek 



^Hoffding, Outlines of Psychology (Eng. transl.l, p, 59. 



The Relation of Mind and Body. 59 

for the causes of natural phenomena and construct our sciences, 
if the energy of the effect was, say, only ^ of that of the cause. 
If there were any fixed ratio between them, we could even 
deduce results in the same way as we do at present. If, how- 
ever, there were no such quantitative relations expressible at 
all, we should go on discovering uniformities and laws in 
just the same way. When dealing with mental phenom- 
ena there is no possibility of discovering any such re- 
lations. We are in a sphere where, from the very nature 
of the case, mathematics does not apply. As Wundt 
writes : '' In its employment in nature, the causal con- 
ception receives a specific stamp which is altogether 
foreign to its logical meaning. The conception of con- 
stancy implies certain principles to which all causality of 
nature is subordinated, so that finally these principles have 
come to be regarded as corollaries of the law of causality. 
Among these are the law of conservation of matter and force, 
and the principle of the equivalence of cause and effect." ^ 
But as Wundt goes on to say, these conceptions have no 
meaning when carried over to the mental sphere. Thc}^ are 
not then to be regarded as consequences of the causal postulate 
in general ; but are necessitated only by the theories and con- 
cepts by means of which we undertake to interpret external 
nature. If, then, in the mental sphere the law of causality 
does not imply an equivalence between cause and effect, 
such a lack cannot be used as an argument against predicat- 
ing a like relation between the phenomena with which psy- 
cho-physics deals. We shall, of course, have to remember 
(as we do in the relations of mental phenomena) that the re- 
lation is not the same as that which exists between a material 
cause and its effect. " No such phenomenal bond can exist 
as that which connects two physical events and we can only 
sav that the cause is invariablv succeeded bv the effect."^ 



^ Wundt, Ethik, ist ed., p. 399. 

"^Strong, "Dr. Miinsterberg's Theory of Mind and Body and its Conse- 
quences," Phil. Rev., Vol. I, No. 2. 



6o The Will, 

While this is true, it is also true that, even granting the 
equivalence of physical cause and physical effect, we do 
not understand in the least, even in this field, how one thing 
can produce another. Nor does science attempt to do so. 
It seeks only for invariable sequences and uniformities. 
'' The Law of Causation, the recognition of which is the 
main pillar of inductive science, is but the familiar truth 
that invariability of succession is found by observation to ob- 
tain between every fact in nature, and some other fact which 
has preceded it, independently of all considerations respecting 
the ultimate mode oi production of phenomena, and of every 
other question regarding the nature of ' things in them- 
selves'."^ Nor does the law of conservation impose any 
new task upon science, nor interfere in any way with the 
above theory of causation. " The manifestations w4iich the 
theory regards as modes of motion, are as much distinct and 
separate phenomena when referred to a single force, as when 
attributed to several. . . The indestructibility of Force no 
more interferes with the theory of causation than the in- 
destructibilit}' of ^Matter, meaning by matter the element of 
resistance in the sensible world. // only enables us to under- 
sta7id better than before the nature a?id laws of some of the 
seque7tcesy~ Since, then, we use the term Causation to ex- 
press the relation between antecedent and consequent both 
in the physical and mental spheres, and since the word when 
used in physical science does not imply an}- conception of 
one \.\\\\\g produci7ig another, but only denotes an invariable 
uniformity, I see no reason why it should not be used 
without any metaphysical implications of the uniformities 
which psycho-physics discovers. In employing it in this 
field, we shall, of course, be obliged to keep in mind that we 
denote something different from physical causality. 

There is still another psycho-physical theor}^ which is a 



^Mill, System of Logic, Book III, Chap. V, Sect. 2. 
2 Mill, Ibid, Book III, Chap. V, Sect. 10. 



The Relatio7i of Mind and Body, 6i 

blending of the common-sense and automaton theories, and 
which we may connect with the name of Miinsterberg. x\c- 
cording to this theory, physical movements of the organism 
go on in entire independence of consciousness. They are 
mere mechanical results ; and Miinsterberg describes in de- 
tail how such a machine as the nervous system, capable of 
transmitting and coordinating forces in such a way as to 
bring about purposive actions, could arise in accordance with 
the laws of evolution. But, on the other hand, he points out 
that psychical phenomena do not form a continuous series by 
themselves, but depend on, and are conditioned by, physical 
phenomena. ^ In the same way, Huxley, while emphatically 
denying that the physical series can be interfered with b}^ the 
mental, declares that we have as much reason for believing 
that physical processes are the causes of mental processes as 
we have for believing that any one thing is the cause of an- 
other. ^ If these assertions are intended only to indicate 
scientific methodological principles, they might perhaps be 
allowed to pass unchallenged. Psychology is dependent upon 
the physiology of the brain and nervous system. The phe- 
nomena with which it deals do appear to be discontinuous 
and incomplete, and it is compelled, at least provisionally, to 
complete its explanation by attempting to give an account of 
the parallel physical series. I have already noticed the dan- 
gers to which this method of explanation is exposed. But a 
materialistic psychology too often takes the reference to 
the nervous system as the final word on the subject. 
When this view is put forward as a metaphysical theory 
it seems to me to involve a double absurdity. In the first 
place, if states of brain ' condition ' states of mind, all 
talk about the utter disparateness of the series, and the 
inconceivability of any relation between them, must cease. 
The process from consciousness to brain, which Miin- 



' Miinsterberg, Die Willenshandlung , p. 109. 

^Huxley, Essay on Descartes, vn Lay Sermons and Addresses. 



62 The Will 

sterberg rejects on the ground that it is not continuously im- 
aginable, is just as unthinkable when we attempt Jto trace it in a 
reverse direction. Furthermore, this theory does violence to 
the law of conservation of energy. For to assert that a physical 
state a has as its result another physical state of exactly the 
same amount of energy, b^ plus a state of consciousness, c^ is 
to make the effect greater than the cause. ^ Moreover, it 
seems to me that this principle, if regarded as a statement of 
fact, is opposed to the conception of causality. Action is 
unthinkable without interaction. Every case of causality 
when rightly understood is seen to involve the conception of 
reciprocity. It seems to me, then, that if states of brain con- 
dition states of consciousness, it is impossible to suppose that 
the former are totally unaffected by the latter. 

We must leave the discussion at this point without at- 
tempting to answer the ultimate metaphysical question re- 
garding the relation of body and mind. We have attempted 
to clear up some of the confusions which attach to the ways 
in which the problem is often stated. In the meantime, we 
must conclude that such a" relation exists. The fact that it 
cannot be embraced in the somewhat simple formula provided 
by the law of the conservation of energy, shows us that this 
relation is more complex than that which obtains between 
the phenomena of physics and chemistry, but it throws no 
doubt upon the fact of relation. 



^ Cf., Scripture, " The Problem of Psychology ", Mind 63. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. 

We have still to consider the vexed question of the Free- 
dom of the Will. This has been the Sphinx problem of 
modern philosophy, and is not unrelated to the Greek ques- 
tion, whether virtue is innate or acquired. The difficulty of 
the problem is due to the fact that the demands of our intel- 
lectual and moral natures seem to be antagonistic. If expe- 
rience is to be possible, we must regard nature as a system of 
necessary laws. " We can explain nothing but that which 
we can reduce to laws ; whenever the determination by 
necessary laws ceases, there ceases also the possibility of any 
explanation." ^ But, it is maintained that if our morality is 
to be real, we must postulate a certain sphere where every 
phenomenon is not necessarily determined by that which 
precedes it, or a realm of Freedom. These postulates, both 
of which appear absolutely necessary, the one for knowledge,, 
the other for our moral life, seem to be incompatible. 

Thus arises the antinomy which it appears can only be 
solved by doing violence to the demands of either our intel- 
lectual, or of our ethical consciousness. On the one hand, it 
is pointed out by Determinists that the individual is moved 
to action by certain motives ; that his actions are the re- 
sultants of certain influences playing upon his character. 
This character again is the product of previous acts, either of 
his own, or of his ancestors ; so that at any time the act per- 
formed is the necessary expression of the individual under 
the given circumstances. Those who adopt Determinism 
point out further, that there is an unbroken line between 
actions which are governed by impulse or instinct, and 
where consequently there can be no talk of freedom, and the 
most complicated and deliberate acts of choice. 



^Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, Abbott's Translation, p. 79. 



I 



64 The Will 

On the other side, it is argued by those who contend for 
Freedom, that it is impossible to consider man as a part of 
nature, and subject, like it, to invariable laws. They urge 
in support of their position, that the reason, the personality, 
cannot be represented as one factor, on a par with others ; 
but that it is the determining ground in reference to which. 
and through which, motives have any value for us at all. 
Further arguments are adduced to prove that it is only on 
the hypothesis of Freedom that we can give any meaning to 
such terms as 'Duty,' 'Obligation,' 'Remorse,' etc., and that 
these terms express real experiences of our moral life. 

If we are to attempt a reconciliation of these views, it is 
well to try what admissions can be made by each side to the 
arguments of the opposite party. To begin, then, it appears 
that the Determinist must admit that man is more than a part 
of Nature. If we speak of him as determined by motives, these 
must not be taken to indicate mere external objects, or occur- 
rences in time or space. For it is only when external events 
and objects are taken up, evaluated, and identified with the self, 
that they have any significance as motives at all. Just as in 
the intellectual sphere the understanding makes Nature, and 
the unrelated sensation is ' as good as nothing,' so it is only 
as adopted by a self that ' circumstances ' or ' environment ' 
can have any meaning for us. There can be no external de- 
termination of our actions : the conscious self is the centre 
from which they proceed. It is just as impossible to explain 
acts of Will without reference to the self, as it would be to 
conceive of our knowledge as thrust upon us from without. 
Nor is the statement that our acts are the resultant of an ex- 
ternal and internal factor an accurate account of the facts ; 
just as it is not a true account of our knowledge, to describe 
it as a compound, one element of which is given from with- 
out, the other contributed by the understanding. In both 
cases, the internal factor is logically prior, and is the pre- 
supposition of the external. There is always a translating, 
a coordinating, and evaluating, of the externally given 



The Freedom of the Will. 65 

element ; and it is only as thus brought into relation to that 
permanent center of experience which constitutes ourselves, 
that external objects can be in any sense motives for us. 

On the other hand, the modern defenders of Freedom have 
given up (at least in name), their claim to a freedom of in- 
difference. It is quite evident that such a conception contra- 
dicts all our experience. No act of Will can be regarded as 
unmotived. Even when our volition is determined by mere 
whim or caprice, there is always present some motive — it 
may be the mere irrational desire to do something unusual. 
The idea of motive or end is an essential part of an act of 
Will. An act which is not directed to some end, were it pos- 
sible, could in no sense be the object of praise or blame, but 
would be wholly irrational and irresponsible. Nor would a 
Libertarian of today claim that an act of choice has no refer- 
ence to the character of the agent. He would, however, 
justly point out that the character is not something external 
to the individual, a foreign power which determines his ac- 
tions. If there were no relation between the act of the indi- 
vidual and his character, how would either degeneration or 
regene:ration be possible ? Furthermore, whatever view we 
take of Freedom, we must admit the conditioning effect of the 
environment in which the lot of the individual is cast. Ex- 
ternal forces, such as climate, soil, and geographical position, 
limit within certain bounds the directions which the activity 
of a particular individual can take. The social environment 
has an even more powerful conditioning influence than the 
physical. The grade of society into which a man is born, the 
education which he receives, and the moral precepts which he 
imbibes, are all potent factors in his life. 

It is worthy of note that neither physical nor social envi- 
ronment can be said absolutely to determine the conduct of 
an individual, though both circumscribe its sphere. This 
limitation takes place in two ways. In virtue of envi- 
ronment, certain lines of conduct may be closed, and so can 
not possibly be willed. But oftentimes a line of activity may 



66 The Will 

also be impossible simply because it never occurred to us. 
Homo tantum potest quantum scit. The free man can choose 
only between possibilities which he knows, and cannot 
create his purposes at pleasure out of nothing. He cannot 
attain a perfection, the thought of which has never come into 
his mind. He cannot decide for something which is not a 
possible object of his will, since it exercises no influence upon 
him. He is only able to prefer one end which solicits him 
to another, to turn away from one motive in order to ' follow 
another. ' ^ i\ll this, it seems to me, will be readily admitted 
by an advocate of Freedom, without prejudicing the cause 
which he is seeking to defend. " It is not necessary to moral 
Freedom ( the Freedom which the Libertarian is concerned 
to maintain ), that on the part of the person to whom it be- 
longs there should be an indeterminate possibility of becom- 
ing and doing anything and everything. " - The only Free- 
dom which is required is the ability to choose, within a lim- 
ited sphere, the possibilities which present themselves to us 
as ends. 

Let us now seek to discover a single proposition which may 
perhaps be admitted by both parties as forming a provisional 
statement of the relation between the individual and his ac- 
tions. The favorite deterministic formula is that ' every ac- 
tion is the necessary result of character and circumstances. ' 
To this statement we may at this stage bring the objection 
that it is not correct to speak of the character as a permanent 
factor, on a par with the external environment ; and, secondly, 
to denominate the act as necessary, is to beg the very point for 
which the Libertarians contend. We shall perhaps avoid the 
above mentioned objections, and find a proposition in which 
both parties can agree, if we say that ' all deliberate action is 
the expression of a man's character or self as it reacts upon 
given circumstances. ' It is true that a single act may not be 



^Sigwart, Vorfragen der Ethik^ p. 24. 
^ Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, p. no. 



The Freedom of the Will. 67 

a complete or adequate expression of the permanent character 
of the individual, yet, if it is not made after deliberation, it 
must represent the self of the moment. 

We have now to ask what is implied in the term ' charac- 
ter' which up to this time we have used in a merely pro- 
visional way ? What notions does the word include ? Char- 
acter is attributed to races or classes, as well as to individuals. 
We speak of the national character of Englishmen, French- 
men, etc., and also of the character which belongs to different 
ages and sexes. It is scarcely necessary to point out that the 
notion of character has no meaning apart from the act in 
which it expresses itself. As an independent entit}^ or 
reality, it is an abstraction ; for if we say that it denotes 
" hollowed out paths in the brain," this only expresses the 
fact that the nerve currents most often run in this direction. 
" Character is simply that of which individual pieces of con- 
duct are the manifestation ; it is the force of which conduct 
is the expression, or the substance of which conduct is the 
attribute." ' 

But if we define character simply as a mode of responding 
in a definite set of circumstances, our previous proposition 
will be true, yet manifestly identical. What is evidently 
contained in the notion, is the thought that there is, both in 
individuals and races, a somewhat constant mode of acting 
under given circumstances. The soliciting power of different 
representations retain a more or less constant ratio to each 
other. No individual is equally receptive for all motives ; 
but each proves through his actions that he has a standard of 
valuation, in virtue of which he chooses one object rather 
than another. It is just this permanent core of individuality, 
as practically manifested, which we name character. 

Furthermore, human character seems to imply some- 
thing more than a mere degree of uniformity in acting. 
Although the lower animals act with almost invariable 



' Alexander, Moral Order and Progress, p. 49. 



68 The Will. 

regularity in like circumstances, yet we do not ascribe 
' character ' to them in the same sense as we do to 
human beings. There is implied in the conception of 
human character, the additional idea of the possession of 
definite ends or ideals, into relation to which our natural 
springs of action, as mere impulses, have to be brought. 
Thus there are for mankind two standards of value which 
may be iised to determine the efficiency of any impulse. 
First, its mere strength or impetuosity, {Heftigkeit) ; and 
secondly, its conformity to, or disagreement with some per- 
manent or deep-rooted center of our being, as represented by 
some end. In a rational volition, it is this latter circum- 
stance which largely fixes the value of any line of conduct, 
and leads to its adoption or rejection. The more deliberate 
and rational the choice, the less important will be the former 
factor, and the more permanently will the latter manifest 
itself. It is this power of modifying the immediately given 
impulses, or the lack of it, which constitutes a strong 
or a weak character. The man who constantly determines 
himself by reference to the idea of the end, who chooses, 
not the immediate good, but that which seems to be good 
' on the whole,' we name a man of strong character, or strong 
will. 

If now the alternative were always chosen which best 
agrees with the permanent ends of the individual, the ques- 
tion of Freedom would never have arisen. We would then 
be in possession of the only Freedom which appears to me 
to have any meaning, the Freedom which is prescribed by 
rational considerations. A freedom of indifference, or the 
ability to choose any of the presenting possibilities without 
reference to any more ultimate consideration, would not be 
the mark of a rational being. The greatest amount of Free- 
dom conceivable is the ability to determine one's self by the 
thought of the highest end, and not the power of acting out of 
all relation to that end. When we speak in this way, how- 
ever, we must not regard the end as something objective, with 



The Freedom of the Will. 69 

the valuation of which we have nothing to do. As we have 
already had occasion to remark, the end is not to be thought 
of as something external to ourselves ; but it is constituted 
by us, and receives its value partly from its immediate hold 
upon our feelings, partly from its relation to some more uni- 
versal end. The highest end, that w^hich is not sought for 
the sake of anything else, is so constituted simply on the basis 
of its immediacy as feeling. It is the highest good for us 
simply because of its intimate connection with our inmost 
being. It is for the time being ourselves, to cease to strive 
for its realization would be to lose our identity. 

The chief, perhaps the only psychological argument which 
is used by Libertarians, consists in an appeal to the fact to 
which consciousness testifies in volition — the sense of Freedom 
which seems to assert our ability to choose between alterna- 
tives. " I hold, therefore," says Professor Sidgwick, " that 
against the formidable array of cumulative evidence offered for 
Determinism there is but one opposing argument of real force ; 
the immediate affirmation of consciousness in the moment of 
deliberate action. And certainly when I have a distinct con- 
sciousness of choosing between alternatives of conduct, one 
of which I conceive as right or reasonable, I find it impossible 
not to think that I can now choose to do what I so conceive — 
supposing that there is no obstacle to my doing it except ab- 
sence of adequate motive — however strong may be my in- 
clination to act unreasonably, and however uniformh^ I may 
have yielded to such inclinations in the past." ^ There can 
be no doubt regarding the feeling of Freedom, the only ques- 
tion is as to what fact it attests. Now, it appears to me that 
the evidence of this feeling at the moment of acting is that 
when we act we are not compelled by an3^thing outside 
ourselves. Our external actions may be constrained by for- 
eign powers, our mental life is free. " Freedom is the capa- 
bility of a being to determine himself through conscious 



^Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, p. 69. 



70 The Will. 

motives. . . It is not want of causality, but absence of 
such causality as would w^holly or partly destroy the psy- 
chological causality. . . One cannot appeal to the con- 
sciousness of Freedom in this question ; for it only testifies 
that we act without external compulsion, but never that we 
act without cause ; or that the reasons which determine us 
are independent of our original structure or the events of 
our own life." ^ But it may be urged that we are not con- 
cerned to prove that we act without causes, but only that al- 
ternatives are open to us. " It is not the possibility of 
merely indeterminate choice, of an arbitrary freak of im- 
motived willing with which we are concerned from an ethical 
point of view, but the possibility of action in conformity 
with practical reason."^ Does consciousness then bear wit- 
ness to such a power to conform to the rules of reason or to 
refuse to conform ? While we are yet in a state of delibera- 
tion, either alternative seems to us equally possible, we have 
the immediate consciousness of Freedom, that the decision 
lies wholly i?t our poiver ; i. e.^ that there is no force external 
to us which prescribes to us ivhat course we shall follow^ or 
in other words, that we are self determined and not com- 
pelled. 

But this feeling cannot be used retrospectively as an evi- 
dence that in any given case we could have acted otherwise. 
It is often urged tliat without such an interpretation ' Re- 
morse ', and ' Sense of Sin \ must be regarded as delusions. ^ 
I shall have to return to this point later on, but here I need^ p^' 
only mention that actions for which^we af terwards^eel re- c,'- - 
morse are not generally alteiided by such adistinct feeling of 1 
Freedo m! In cases where we sin and"cbine short, the tempta- / 
tion seems to destroy the sense of Freedom. There can be 
no doubt that this feeling is more prominent in cases where 
the immediate soliciting powder of an impulse or appetite has 

i\Vundt, Ethik (ist ed.), p. 397. 

=^Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, p. 67 i^note). 



The Freedom of the Will. 71 

been subordinated to some more permanent and remote good. 
It is to cases of this latter character that defenders of the Free 
Will theory always point ; the causality of the Ego as attested 
to by immediate consciousness is naturally then so strong as to 
make it impossible for them not to believe that they could 
have acted differently. But if the theory of alternatives is 
valid, we must face the other side, which is unfortunately too 
common, where the action seems ' to follow the line of least 
resistance. ' 

In our analysis of Willing ( Chap. III. ), we found that the 
essence of volition consists in holding fast one representation 
in consciousness, and that if we could succeed in retaining the 
proper representation, the act would take place of itself. Now 
the question of Freedom will come to be whether, in cases 
where the ideal by means of which we ought to determine 
ourselves, is crowded out of consciousness by some present 
attraction, it is really possible to hold fast to it, and res- 
olutely keep it before consciousness. Our experience in cases 
where we succumb to the immediate solicitations, is that the 
object is so interesting and attractive that it appears to take 
possession of us, and the more remote ideal is allowed to slip j 
out of sight. ■ 

It may perhaps be pointed out here that a general end or 
principle of action is rarely, if ever, consciously abandoned. 
It is pushed more and more into the background and evisce- 
rated by single acts. We excuse ourselves in each case with 
the thought that for this once it does not matter, or that there 
are here some peculiar circumstances and the act does not 
really conflict with the end. As Aristotle says : "The minor 
premise — this act is of a certain kind — is unknown. " Many 
examples could be given to show that under the influence of 
some attractive force, our intellectual insight is perverted, and 
we really persuade ourselves to believe what we wish. 

To return to the problem of freedom. The question which 
we were considering was whether, in the case where the decis- 
ion had been made in what appears to be ' the line of least re- 




72 The Will 

sistance,' the act of will can be called free. It appears to 
me that since we have supposed the choice to have been 
made after deliberation, the act in this case is also the 
expression of the self, and therefore free. It is just because 
the individual possesses such a definite character, that this line 
of action seemed to him at the moment of deciding, the 
greater good. What is to appear to him as the most desirable 
line of conduct at any time, is determined by his original 
constitution, and by his whole past history. Of coursepthat 
history is to a large extent his own ptocluction ; but it is im- 
possible for an individual to wipe out the past, and start as if ^ 
it had never existed. Advocates of Free Will differ greatly 
regarding the influence of character upon an individual. Pro- 
fessor Sidgwick says : " I recognize that each concession to 
vicious desire makes the difficulty of resisting it greater 
when the desire recurs ; but the difficulty always seems to 
remain separated by an impassable gulf from impossibility. ''' 
On the other hand, Dr. Martineau, an even more strenuous 
defender of Free Will, writes : " In the earlier period of res- 
ponsibile life there will, no doubt, be some wavering and al- 
ternation between defeat and victory ; but so rapidly does 
weakness or force of conscience set in and become habitual, 
that every lapse is a fearful portent of another, and every 
faithful achievement a presumption of more ; and the voli- 
tions of the sane mind fast assume a determinate complexion, 
rarely differing much from the premonitory symptoms of its 
first probation. ]\Ien certainly differ greatly . . . but 
rarely does a man vary greatly from himself, victor today and 
vanquished tomorrow. Aji incalculable proportion of what 
are called diversities of character are constitutional rather 
than moral distinctions, no more the ground of any judicial 
awards than the fact that ivhen you zvere tempted I did not 
sin. Were this class of differences removed and men ar- 
ranged solely by their fidelity or infidelity in dealing with 



1 Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, p. 6; 



The Freedom of the Will. 73 

their own problems, who shall say how near the classification 
would approach the two-fold distribution of the ever yielding 
and the ever firm." ^ It is impossible for any individual to 
begin as if his past were not. Even if we were to take the 
original first pair in the garden, we should have to say that 
the forbidden fruit was a temptation to them, because in vir- 
tue of their nature they were receptive to its influence. At 
the moment of choice, supposing it to be made deliberately, 
it must have appeared to them as the object most to be de- 
sired. 

It will be necessary once more to insist, however, that 
temptation does not come from without, but from within. 
' We are tempted when we are led away by our own lusts and 
enticed.' The witches could not have tempted Macbeth had 
not his own soul responded to their suggestions. Banquo is 
' armed so strong in honesty ' that their words have no effect 
upon him. No solicitation from without can take possession 
of a man against his will. ' My poverty, but not my will 
consents,' says the apothecary to Hamlet ; but at the moment 
of the exchange, the money he received for the poison was 
more important in his eyes than a human life.^ 

It appears, then, that the consciousness of freedom cannot 
be appealed to after the act has been performed, as an evi- 
dence that we might have done otherwise. Such an idea, 
when referred to a past action, must be regarded " partly as 
the confusion of a metaphysical notion with psychological 
experience, partly as an illusion, which is very natural when 
the individual, with his new conviction, and with the strong 
desire to have acted otherwise, vividly conceives himself at 
the moment of action, without, however, being able to survey 
and realize all the inner and outer conditions in actual opera- 



^ Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory^ Vol. II, pp. 68-69. 6/. also James 
" The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life," Int. Jour, of Ethics, Vol. I. 
' ' The deepest difference practically in the moral life of man is the difference 
between the easy going and the strenuous mood. " 

^C/". Professor Corson's Introdtiction to Shakespeare, pp. 223 ff. 



74 The Will 

tion at the time." ^ After the individual has willed the act, 
and has repented of it, he projects himself into the past, and 
imagines that the act might have taken place at that time^ 
as he now wishes that it had. Again, the condition of the 
self looking back upon the act with remorse, is widely differ- 
ent from that in which it made the decision, yet w^e ascribe 
to the past self 1 :oth the mental status which led to the voli- 
tion, and that which at the present moment leads to its con- 
demnation. Further, any state of deliberation is a state of in- 
hibition. The volition is the removing of the brakes which 
have prevented action, and brings with it a peculiar feeling 
of unrestrictedness which drives into the background the 
thought that this state has been caused. With regard to 
the future, every act appears to be undetermined, because we 
cannot form any clear picture of it without images of other 
possibilities coming in.- 

A great deal of controversy has taken place as to whether 
human actions are contingent or necessary. We shall have 
later to examine the moral arguments and to determine, 
whether or not contingency is a postulate of morality. Here 
we must first try to understand what meaning we can give 
to the terms. Contingency and necessity then, it seems to 
me, are categories that express, as Kant says, no determina- 
tion of the objects themselves, but only a relation to our 
mode of cognizing them. If we call a future act contin- 
gent, we mean by the word, that any one of several pos- 
sibilities may occur ; or better, that our knowledge does not 
enable us to make any prediction. On the other hand, 
* necessit}-' only expresses our expectation founded upon uni- 
formity of experience, or upon complete knowledge of all 
the conditions at work. " A thing can in no respect be 
called contingent except in relation to the imperfection of 
our knowledge, and our ignorance of its causes. It is only 

^ Hoffding, Outlines of Psychology, p. 34S. 

"^ Cf. Hoffding, "Die Gesetzmiissigkeit der psychischen Acti\-itat," 
Vierteljahrsch.f. wissenschaftl . Philosophic, XV., 4. 



The Freedom of the Will. 75 

called 7iecessary when our state of knowledge is such that 
we perceive that it will certainly happen. " ^ It is quite usual 
to conceive of things as substances with certain rights and 
prerogatives of their own apart from the order of the world 
to which they belong ; or perhaps a more common mode of 
thought regards a law as an absolute prius over and above 
the things and events in which it is manifested. Both of 
these views evidently depend upon a false abstraction of our 
thought. As Lotze says, " The fact which we have to recog- 
nize is the process of becoming itself, and as given along 
with it we have also to recognize the directio7i which this 
progress takes." ^ 

It is only with reference, then, to our expectation of what 
is about to happen, that necessity and contingency have any 
meaning. The past is neither contingent nor necessary, nor 
can these predicates be applied to things in themselves. 
Nevertheless, in the physical world it ma}' be, perhaps, allow- 
able to speak of an event as the result of certain conditions. 
True, we imply nothing by means of the word except our 
own conviction that the occurrence will take place. But in 
virtue of the conceptions of the permanence of matter, and 
the conservation of energy which we call to our aid in inter- 
preting external nature, we are able in a great many spheres 
to predict with mathematical accuracy the character of future 
events. It is, then, just this power of prediction which we 
mean to denote when we call any event necessary. But in 
the case of a conscious individual, we use no conceptions 
analogous to those of the conservation of matter and energy. 
These material notions, as we have already seen (p. 50), lose 
their meaning when applied to the activities of knowing and 
willing. In the spiritual sphere, there is an increase of men- 
tal force in the development of each individual. " As an im- 
mediate consequence of this it follows, that in the psychical 



1 Spinoza, Ethics, Part I, Prop. 33. (Note). 

2 Lotze, Metaphysics, (Eng. trans.), Vol. I, p. 197. 



76 The Will 

world a sufficient causal explanation is possible only in a 
backward direction. We are able beforehand, at most, mere- 
ly to indicate the general character of the result, but never to 
foretell the exact form which it will take. There is a spirit- 
ual history of the past but none of the future. Laplace's 
' world formula ' cannot be referred to mental events, not 
only because of the infinite complications in that realm, but 
also because it is in itself in fundamental opposition to the 
laws of spiritual phenomena. " '. 

But, after all, I may be accused by both parties of evading 
the real question at issue. The old interrogation may again 
be urged, ' whether at the moment of action the other alterna- 
tive might not have been chosen '. I cannot but think that 
this puzzle is entirely futile, and of a piece with the question, 
' whether or not the world as a whole might not have been 
otherwise '. Before the choice was made, during the time of 
deliberation, neither alternative is possible. But when the 
evidence is all in, one act only is the proper expression of the 
individual's character. But those who contend for ' contin- 
gency ', however, may still insist that the self can step in at 
the moment of action and determine the event this way or 
that, without any reference to the character or motives. This 
is to relapse into the old position of librium arbitrii. It is to 
separate the act from the sum of its conditions, to make it 
irrational, and entirely incapable of any explanation. 

But there are some advocates of freedom who put the mat- 
ter in a much more intelligible form. The freedom which 
they demand is the power to determine oneself according to 
the conception of an end. They admit that every human act 
is necessary, in this sense, that when the entire series of 
its conditions are present, it cannot fail to appear ; and that 
it could not have happened otherwise, since this would have 
demanded other conditions. But among these conditions the 
most important is this : that the ego itself had decided for 



' Wundt, Elhik, (ist. ed.), P- 400. 



The Freedom of the Will, yy 

one alternative rather than the other. " Besides the effects 
of which I am the accumulation, I claim also a personal caus- 
ality which is still left over, when my phenomena have told 
me the tale of what they are and do." ^ Those who uphold 
this theory maintain that it is conceivable that the self 
should originate absolutely new beginnings in the course 
of things. Every such a new beginning must, just be- 
cause it is a beginning, be inexplicable as regards the 
way in which it comes to pass ; for to explain means 
nothing more than to show that a definite event is the re- 
sult of its antecedents in accordance with general rules. If 
it is claimed that such a beginning is unthinkable, they reply 
that the incomprehensible character is no argument against 
the assumption of it, but, indeed, is a result of that very as- 
sumption. " A necessity of happening for human thought and 
an antecedent real necessity are two entirely different things." ^ 

The real truth which gives plausibility to this position is 
found in the fact that the self is more than the sum of its con- 
ditions. We can never fully explain an act of an individual 
by giving an account of the conditions under which he lived. 
The individual is something over and above this sum ; he is 
the synthesis of the conditions ; yet apart from the conditions 
he is nothing. The transcendent self is a mere caput ^nortu- 
um. To make the result depend upon the action of such a 
self would be to contradict all experience. It would be to 
call in the aid of a deus ex machina to explain what we are 
as yet unable to reduce to law. True, the self is the center 
into relation with which all external agencies are brought 
and from which they all receive their value. This is the 
freedom of self-determination, which must, as the action of a 
rational being, take place according to laws. 

The point of view of those who contend for contingency, 



^ Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, Vol. II, p. 39. 

^Riimelin, Reden und Aufsdtze, Ueber einige psychologische Voraiissetz- 
ungen des Strafrechts. 



78 The Will 

seems very much akin to that of those who base their faith 
on the miraculous in nature. The motive in both cases is the 
same, to vindicate the supremacy of the spiritual principle 
against a material conception of the universe. The old de- 
ism supposed that God is a being outside of the world, w^ho 
occasionally manifested his presence by a miracle. Kvents at 
certain points of time, the creation, the flood, etc., were ap- 
pealed to as proofs of the divine existence. Just in the same 
way, it has been too often the custom to write and speak as 
if in the greater part of the mental life, the self were a mere on. 
looker. But yet in order to demonstrate tlie existence of the 
self, whose function they have ahnost taken away, the same 
writers claim that at certain points in the history of the indi- 
vidual, this power steps in and originates new beginnings. 
Both these truths rest on a surer basis than such defenders 
have found for them. We have not in psychology to vindi- 
cate and exhibit the action of self at this point or that. On the 
contrary, we have found reason for maintaining that the whole 
psychical life is a manifestation of the self. No part of our expe- 
rience can be regarded as going on automatically, or as handed 
over to us ready made by means of nervous processes. We not 
unfrequently find the process of external association regarded 
as a mental event tliat is sufficiently explained by the con- 
nection between the brain ganglia. That being assumed, the 
next step is to endeavor to show, as ]\Iiinsterberg has done, ^ 
that the so-called ' inner association ' is reducible to outer. 
Against this point of view, it is necessary to raise the previous 
question. We must endeavor to show that external associa- 
tion is not in itself intelligible without postulating an activi- 
ty of the self.- 

We have now to investigate the moral arguments for the 
freedom of the will. It has been urged that indeterminism 



^ See Miinsterberg, Beitrdge zur exper. Psychologic, Heft I. 
■^ For a full and con^•incing demonstration of this point, cf. Hoffding, 
" ijber Wiedererkennen, Association, etc.," V. f. w. Phil., 1SS9-90. 



The Freedo^n of the Will. 79 

is implied both in the rewards and punishments that are 
dealt out by the state to its citizens, and also in the moral 
judgments which we pass upon our own conduct or that of 
others. It is generally admitted that it is impossible to ex- 
plain or justify indeterminism from a theoretical standpoint, 
but yet it is claimed as a necessary postulate both of criminal 
law, and of the facts of our moral life. We shall have to 
examine these cases separately. 

In the first place, it is maintained that responsibility be- 
fore the law implies contingency, or a power of acting other- 
wise. x\ judge is not justified in condemning a prisoner to 
loss of liberty or to other punishment, it is said, unless he is 
convinced that the man could have acted differently. All 
due place for the function of punishment as a reforming and 
deterring influence being conceded, it is claimed that these 
elements by no means exhaust its nature, and that there is 
something still necessary to explain its nature and justify its 
existence. This additional element is contained in the 
thought that justice demands that the offender shall be 
punished. This is alone what justifies punishmeut, or at 
least what justifies us in awarding severe punishment for 
great crimes, and in punishing with less severity for smaller 
offences.' "What is really true for the ordinary conscious- 
ness, what it clings to and will not let go ... is the neces- 
sary connection between responsibility and liability to pun- 
ishment, between punishment and desert or the finding of 
guiltiness before the law or moral tribunal." ^ In other words, 
the idea of justice demands that the offender shall suffer and 
make reparation for his crime. This view is strongly em- 
phasized by Kant in the Rechtslehre : " Judicial punishment 
[poena forensis)^ which is distinguishable from the natural 
punishment {poena naturalis) which overtakes wickedness 



^Riimelin, Reden u Aufsdtze, Ueber einige psych. Voraussetzungen des 
Strafrechts . 

^Bradley, Ethical Studies^ p. 5. 




So The Will. 

and of which the law-giver takes no account, can never be 
regarded as a mere means to the good of either the indi- 
vidual himself, or of society. But it must always be directed 
against the transgressor because he has broken the law. . . . 
The individual must be found worthy of punishment before 
there can be any thought of making this punishment of ser- 
vice to him or to his fellow citizens. The law of punish- 
ment is a categorical punishment, and woe to him who 
follows the serpentine windings of a utilitarian theory in 

rder to discover what advantage there is to be derived from 
punishment, according to the pharisaical maxim, ' it is better 
for one man to die rather than all the people perish.' For if 
righteousness should cease to exist, human life would no 
longer have any value. . . . Only the right of retribution 
(^jus talionis) as exercised, of course by a judge, not by a 
private individual, is a real and accurate description of the 
quality and quantity of punishment ; all other descriptions 
are wavering and evasive, and have no resemblance to the 
dictates of justice in its strength and purity." ^ 

The same, or almost the same view of the function of 
punishment is taken by Hegel, who regards punishment as 
the inevitable negating of the crime.^' Several modern 
writers also insist upon ' the idea of reparation or retribution,' 
as a necessary element of the idea of punishment.^ 

; In spite of such high authorities, however, I cannot ad- 
mit that criminal law presupposes the power of alternative 
on the part of the law-breaker. It is only if we insist in 



^Kant, Werke, Bd. VII, pp. 149, 150 (Hartensteins ed.). 

' Werke, Bd. VIII, p. 138. — Since this essay was written several articles 
dealing ^^^th Hegel's theory of punishment have appeared in philosophical 
journals. Cf. J. E. McTaggert, /;//. Journ. of Ethics, Vol. VI. pp. 479 fiF. ; 
and S. W. D3'de. "Hegel's Theory of Crime and Punishment,'" Phil. Review, 
VII, pp. 62 ff. 

" Cf. J. Seth, "The Theory- of Punishment." ////. fourh. of Ethics, Vol. 
II, No. 2. 



The Freedom of the Will. 8 1 

finding in punishment a retributory element, an attempt on 
the part of the state to obtain a quid pro quo^ that we require 
to attribute any such unaccountable power to the individual. 
All a judge is concerned to know is that the individual has 
acted with full self-consciousness. The instinct to take ven- 
geance, however useful it may have been in a militant state 
of society, does not find a place in the civilization of the 
present time. 

The prevalent view of the present age is that punishment is 
not retribution for past crime ; but that its purpose is to pre- 
vent future wrongdoing. What is aimed at, and what is felt to 
be the only justification of punishment, is the reformation of 
the criminal, and the protection of society. This later end 
is accomplished in two ways ; namely, by freeing society from 
those who violate its laws, and by deterring others from follow- 
ing their example. The second duty which the state owes to 
its citizens, that of education, is becoming more and more 
prominent in dealing with the criminal class. These are 
regarded as a class who require some special attention on the 
part of the state, not as wilful and deliberate offenders upon 
whom the state is called to take vengeance. 

There are two conditions under which it is possible to say 
that if the individual cannot help doing the act, he should 
not be punished. Firstly, if the act is not the expression of 
the character of the individual, if it has been extorted from 
him by an external agency, he is not justly considered dan- 
gerous and separated from the rest of society. Nor has he 
shown that he requires that special treatment which the state 
deals out to those who do not realize themselves in confor- 
mity with the required norm. Secondly, if his character were 
fixed and unalterable, all efforts toward reform would be in 
vain, and it might be a question as to how far the state is 
justified in using him as a ' means ' to deter others. But pun- 
ishment obtains its final justification from the fact that the 
ofEender can be induced to act differently. That is, through 
the help of the means provided by the state, he can become 



82 The Will 

another man, acquire new ends, and take up a different atti- 
tude toward the world. 

The reformation of the criminal, and the protection of 
society, appear to me, then, the only ends which are, or 
should be, aimed at in punishment. But in a certain sense 
we may say that all punishment is retributive. Punishment is 
the denial or negation of the wrong by the reaffirmation of the 
right ; and the wrong exists in the will or self of the crim- 
inal, therefore by punishing him we seem to destroy the evil 
which we may regard as personified in him. This is in effect 
what really does take place, and what the popular conscious- 
ness demands. The state, then, as the suppressor of crime 
and promoter of good, may be regarded as a moral or spiritual 
agent ; ^ yet, although legal punishment is retributive in its 
nature, it is not retribution which is consciously aimed at. 
Such a theory would offend our moral natures. Its truth, 
however, has been well expressed by Mr. Alexander as fol- 
lows : " The value of the theory lies in its placing human 
punishment in a line with the process of self assertion by 
which species maintain their life. The human institution of 
punishment is comprised under the wider law of nature, of 
the reaction of an organism against anything which impedes 
its vitality. From this comprehensive point of view, punish- 
ment, therefore, is retributive. Men do like the rest of the 
world. But though it is true to sa}^ that punishment avenges 
the evil deed, if we go on to say, that we punish for the sake of 
vengeance, or that punishment is its own end, we are not 
only stating somet ing repulsive in itself, but are guilty of 
positive confusion."^ 

Our conception of punishment, then, seems to square as 



• C/., Rashdall, Int.Journ. of Ethics, " TheTheorj^of Punishment," Vol. 
II, pp. 20 ff. 

^Alexander, Moral Order and Progress, p. 329, Cf. Also Hegel, Werke 
VIII, p. 136. '■''Die That des Verbrechens ist nicht ein Erstes, Positives 
zu welchem die Strafe als Negation kame ; sondern ein Negatives, so dass 
die Strafe nur Negation der Negation ist. ' ' 



The Freedom of the Will. 83 

well with determinism as with freedom. Indeed, we may 
claim, that only upon the supposition that a man's acts repre- 
sent his character, and take place according to fixed laws, 
does there appear to be any hope of influencing him in any- 
way. We may, perhaps, then assert, that if the retributory 
theory of punishment postulates freedom of alternatives, the 
reformatory conception demands as a presupposition, deter- 
minism. It is just because a man cannot help acting as he 
does, that he requires to be separated from society, and sub- 
jected to a special kind of treatment. 

The distinctively moral argument is based on the feeling of 
obligation, and the retrospective judgments we pass on our 
own conduct. It is contained in Kant's famous statement, 
*' the ought implies the can." Now it is urged with great 
force by some modern writers, that although, from the point 
of view of psychology, we cannot escape deterministic con- 
clusions, yet the fact of morality compels us to postulate in- 
determinism. In other words, the recognition of an act as 
one which I ought to perform, implies ability on my part to 
perform it. The feeling of remorse, which is the consequence 
of the neglect of some duty, would be utterly vain and un- 
meaning, it is said, if I am so constituted as to be incapable 
of acting otherwise. " Either free will is a fact, or moral judg- 
ment a delusion. " ' " Whatever may be the case with the in- 
tellectual problem, the facts which we call moral, the supreme 
facts of human existence, do, as Kant insisted, demand such 
reference to a freely acting personality. " ^ 

If determinism really destroys our mr ral conceptions, we 
must admit that this is a strong argument against it. For it 
is undoubtedly true that the facts of our moral consciousness 
are as real and authoritative as any other facts of our life. I 
venture to think, however, that moral conceptions and facts 
will not be found incompatible with determinism. We may 



^Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, Vol. II., p. 141. 
' J. Seth, Freedom as Ethical Postulate, p. 24. 



84 The Will 

indeed have to modify to some extent our traditional notions 
of morality; but I believe that when thus modified, they will be 
more in accordance with our every-day experience, and with 
the laws of psychology. First, then, it seems evident that 
the importance of freedom as an ethical postulate has grown 
out of 'the conception of morality as moral law. "It is 
through the jural conception of ethics that the controversy of 
free will chiefly becomes important. A plain man does not 
naturally inquire whether he is free or not to seek his own 
good, provided only that he knows what it is, and that it is 
attainable by voluntary action. But when his conduct is 
compared with a code, to the violation of which punishments 
are attached, the question whether he really could obey the 
rule by which he is judged is obvious and inevitable ; since if 
he could not, it seems contrary to our sense of justice to pun- 
ish him." ^ But in modern times we seem to have reverted 
to Aristotle's conception of morality as action according to 
an end. It seems quite possible, then, that morality will re- 
main just what it is, whether we are free or determined. 
Ethics, like logic, is a normative science. Just as logic pre- 
scribes certain laws or standards for thought, so ethics at- 
tempts to discover the norms of right conduct. These 
norms may be prescribed by society, yet the individual 
in virtue of his moral nature, must adopt them as his own. 
The feeling of obligation is simply the immediate con- 
sciousness of the individual that these ends have a right to 
him. They carry with them, as Kant remarked, a certain 
dignity and majesty before which our moral nature bows 
down. A feeling of obligation is simply the recognition of 
the authority and universality of certain norms of conduct. 
What then is the truth in the argument that the ' ought' im- 
plies the ' can ' ? Not that we could have acted otherwise 



^Sidgwick, History of Ethics, p. lo. Compare Paulsen's description of 
the problem as one ' ' which arose under certain conditions and has disap- 
peared with the disappearance of these conditions, a problem which exists 
only for a theological or scholastic philosophy." Ethik^ p. 357. 



The Freedom of the Will. 85 

than we did in cases where we have failed ; but that we are 
capable of becoming something better than we are at present. 
The ' ought ' does not imply that we can here and now real- 
ize any ideal which we recognize as binding upon us ; but it 
implies ' canhood,' the potentiality of attaining a position 
higher than we have yet reached. The recognition of some- 
thing as that which ought to be realized is the sole condition 
of future progress. The feeling of obligation, so to speak, 
contains in it ' the promise and potency ' of all moral im- 
provement. And it is because we recognize these moral ends 
as attainable that they have any binding force for us. If 
our characters were not subject to change, fatalism would be 
the logical outcome of Determinism. If I were persuaded 
that any external force prevented me from becoming other 
than I am, no ideals of a better life would be recognized as 
obligatory. The fatalist says : ' If my act is the resultant 
of my character and environment, my future conduct is ab- 
solutely necessary. My character is given and my circum- 
stances as well, therefore the result is something over which 
I can have no control.' If such were the actual facts of the 
case, moral obligation would be entirely meaningless. The 
feeling of responsibility which has as its basis ' the immedi- 
ate consciousness of Freedom ' is a valid argument against 
any such position. 

We have next to consider in what way a Determinist can 
interpret the feeling of remorse, and the consciousness of sin. 
It is urged with great force by the advocates of Free Will, 
that if we do not admit the possibility of doing otherwise, at 
least in crucial cases, these terms represent mere illusions. We 
may err, it is said, but we cannot sin, nor can we have any 
reason for remorse. I venture, however, to think that a real 
meaning and a sufficient justification can be given to these 
feelings without recognizing any such postulate. If the in- 
dividual admits that the action in question has been con- 
sciously willed by him, and that nothing but his own char- 
acter led to its adoption, and if now he has come to a better 



86 The Will. 

mind and recognizes that it is not in conformity with some 
ideal which is regarded as higher, and hence as obligatory, 
he has every possible motive for reproaching himself. The 
feeling of remorse is the immediate result of the perception 
of the discrepancy existing between the ideal and the actual. 
The Determinist, regarding his act as the expression of his 
character, and not of some unmotived freak of willing, has 
the strongest possible reasons for feeling remorse. It is when 
he fully realizes that the act is his own — that he is a man of 
such a character — that his feeling of remorse becomes most 
poignant, and he is ready to abhor himself and exclaim, 
' wretched man that I am ; who shall deliver me !' He 
judges and condemns not merely the act, but his own char- 
acter, which the action has shown to fall so far short of 
what it ought to be, and of the standard which his own moral 
nature demands. Remorse when applied by an individual 
to his own character in this sense, has a real regenerating in- 
fluence. If, on the contrary, it is indulged in as vain regrets 
regarding the past, it is debasing and unmanly. The pain 
which I feel today when some act has shown me that I am 
mean or cowardly, becomes a force, a motive, to lead me to a 
better life. Ethical judgments, whether passed upon our- 
selves or others, are justifiable only if they are used as ethical 
forces in order that a different course of action may be 
followed. " When we pronounce ethical judgment upon 
others, the question is not whether or not the}^ could have 
acted otherwise ; but we blame an act in order that the will 
of the individual ma}^ act differently in future. We have no 
right to pronounce ethical judgments upon others except 
from ethical motives. Every one who expresses an ethical 
judgment uses forces which are among the strongest and 
deepest in the world, and imposes upon himself, therefore, 
an ethical responsibility." ^ 



^Hoffding, " Die Gesetzmassigkeit der psych. Actmtat," V. f. w., Phil. 
XV, 4. 



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